A short time afterwards we passed through a narrow part of the stream between two shores wooded to their summits, till we came in sight of a large bareplateauof rock, called King Arthur’s Plain;—the fabulous hero is said to have encamped here. In half an hour we reached Monmouth, a small ancient town, in which Henry the Fifth was born. A lofty statue of him adorns the roof of the town-hall; but nothing remains of the castle in which he first saw the light, save an ornamented Gothic window, and a court in which turkeys, geese and ducks were fattened. This would have been more suitable to the birth-place of Falstaff.
I went into a bookseller’s shop to buy a ‘Guide,’ and unexpectedly made the acquaintance of a very amiable family. It consisted of the old bookseller, his wife, and two pretty daughters, the most perfect specimens of innocent country girls I ever met with. I went in just as they were at tea; and the father, a very good-natured man, but unusually loquacious, for an Englishman, took me absolutely and formally prisoner, and began to ask me the strangest questions about the Continent and about politics. The daughters, who obviously pitied me—probably from experience—tried to restrain him; but I let him go on, and surrendered myself for half an hour ‘de bonne grâce,’ by which I won the good-will of the whole family to such a degree, that they all pressed me most warmly to stay some days in this beautiful country, and to take up myabode with them. When I rose at length to go, they positively refused to take any thing for the book, and ‘bongré, malgré,’ I was forced to keep it as a present. Such conquests please me, because their manifestation can come only from the heart.
Chepstow, Dec. 19th.
As I was dressed early, and after a rapid breakfast was going to set out, I discovered, not without a disagreeable surprise, that my purse and pocket-book were missing. I remembered perfectly that I laid them before me in the coffee-room last night; that I was quite alone, and that I dined and wrote to you there; that I referred to the notes in my pocket-book for my letter, and used my purse to pay the boatmen. It was clear, therefore, that I must have left it there, and the waiter have taken possession of it. I rang for him, recapitulated the above facts, and asked, looking earnestly at him, if he had found nothing? The man looked pale and embarrassed, and stammered out that he had seen nothing but a bit of paper with writing on it, which he believed was still lying under the table. I looked, and found it in the place he mentioned. All this appeared to me very suspicious. I made some representations to the host, a most disagreeable-looking fellow, which indeed contained some implied threats: but he answered shortly, That he knew his people; that a theft had not occurred in his house for thirty years, and that my behaviour was very offensive to him;—that if I pleased, he would immediately send to a magistrate, have all his servants sworn, and his house searched. But then, added he with a sneer, you must not forget that all your things, even to the smallest trifle, must be examined too; and if nothing is found on any of us, you must pay the costs and make me a compensation. ‘Qu’allai-je faire dans cette galère?’ thought I, and saw clearly that my best way was to put up with my loss—about ten pounds—and to depart. I therefore took some more bank-notes out of my travelling-bag, paid the reckoning, which was pretty moderate, and thought I distinctly recognised one of my own sovereigns in the change he gave me:—it had a little cut over George the Fourth’s eye. Persuaded that host and waiter were partners in one concern, I shook off the dust of my feet, and stepped into the postchaise with the feelings of a man who has escaped from a den of thieves.
To render a service to future travellers, I stopped the chaise, and went to inform my friend the bookseller of my mishap. The surprise and concern of all were equal. In a few minutes the daughters began to whisper to their mother, made signs to one another, then took their father on one side; and after a short deliberation, the youngest came up to me and asked me, blushing and embarrassed, “Whether this loss might not have caused me a ‘temporary embarrassment,’ and whether I would accept a loan of five pounds, which I could restore whenever I returned that way;” at the same time trying to push the note into my hand. Such genuine kindness touched me to the heart: it had something so affectionate and disinterested, that the greatest benefit conferred under other circumstances would perhaps have inspired me with less gratitude than this mark of unaffected good-will. You may imagine how cordially I thanked them. “Certainly,” said I, “were I in the slightest difficulty, I should not be too proud to accept so kind an offer; but as this is not in the least degree the case, I shall lay claim to your generosity in another way, and beg permission to be allowed to carry back to the Continent a kiss from each of the fairgirls of Monmouth.” This was granted, amid much laughter and good-natured resignation. Thus freighted, I went back to my carriage. As I had gone yesterday by water, I took my way to-day along the bank of the river to Chepstow. The country retains the same character,—rich, deeply-wooded and verdant: but in this part it is enlivened by numerous iron-works, whose fires gleam in red, blue, and yellow flames, and blaze up through lofty chimneys, where they assume at times the form of huge glowing flowers, when the fire and smoke, pressed down by the weight of the atmosphere, are kept together in a compact motionless mass. I alighted to see one of these works. It was not moved, as most are, by a steam-engine, but by an immense water-wheel, which again set in motion two or three smaller. This wheel had the power of eighty horses; and the whirling rapidity of its revolutions, the frightful noise when it was first set going, the furnaces around vomiting fire, the red-hot iron, and the half-naked black figures brandishing hammers and other ponderous instruments, and throwing around the red hissing masses, formed an admirable representation of Vulcan’s smithy.
About midway in my journey the country changed, as it did yesterday, into a stern rocky region. In the centre of a deep basin, encompassed by mountains of various forms, we descried immediately above the silver stream the celebrated ruins of Tintern Abbey. It would be difficult to imagine a more favourable situation, or a more sublime ruin. The entrance to it seems as if contrived by the hand of some skilful scene-painter to produce the most striking effect. The church, which is large, is still almost perfect: the roof alone and a few of the pillars are wanting. The ruins have received just that degree of care which is consistent with the full preservation of their character; all unpicturesque rubbish which could obstruct the view is removed, without any attempt at repair or embellishment. A beautiful smooth turf covers the ground, and luxuriant creeping plants grow amid the stones. The fallen ornaments are laid in picturesque confusion, and a perfect avenue of thick ivy-stems climb up the pillars and form a roof over-head. The better to secure the ruin, a new gate of antique workmanship, with iron ornaments, is put up. When this is suddenly opened, the effect is most striking and surprising. You suddenly look down the avenue of ivy-clad pillars, and see their grand perspective lines closed, at a distance of three hundred feet, by a magnificent window eighty feet high and thirty broad: through its intricate and beautiful tracery you see a wooded mountain, from whose side project abrupt masses of rock. Over-head the wind plays in the garlands of ivy, and the clouds pass swiftly across the deep blue sky. When you reach the centre of the church, whence you look to the four extremities of its cross, you see the two transept windows nearly as large and as beautiful as the principal one: through each you command a picture perfectly different, but each in the wild and sublime style which harmonizes so perfectly with the building. Immediately around the ruin is a luxuriant orchard. In spring, how exquisite must be the effect of these gray venerable walls rising out of that sea of fragrance and beauty! A Vandal lord and lord lieutenant of the county conceived the pious design of restoring the church. Happily, Heaven took him to itself before he had time to execute it.
From Tintern Abbey the road rises uninterruptedly to a considerable height above the river, which is never wholly out of sight. The country reaches the highest degree of its beauty in three or four miles, at the Duke of Beaufort’s villa called the Moss House. Here are delightful paths,which lead in endless windings through wild woods and evergreen thickets, sometimes on the edge of lofty walls of rock, sometimes through caves fashioned by the hand of Nature, or suddenly emerge on open plateaus to the highest point of this chain of hills, called the Wind-cliff, whence you enjoy one of the most extensive and noble views in England.
At a depth of about eight hundred feet, the steep descent below you presents in some places single projecting rocks; in others, a green bushy precipice. In the valley, the eye follows for several miles the course of the Wye, which issues from a wooden glen on the left hand, curves round a green garden-like peninsula rising into a hill studded with beautiful clumps of trees, then forces its foaming way to the right, along a huge wall of rock nearly as high as the point where you stand, and at length, near Chepstow Castle, which looks like a ruined city, empties itself into the Bristol Channel, where ocean closes the dim and misty distance.
On this side of the river, before you, the peaked tops of a long ridge of hills extend along nearly the whole district which your eyes commands. It is thickly clothed with wood, out of which a continuous wall of rock festooned with ivy picturesquely rears its head. Over this ridge you again discern water,—the Severn, five miles broad, thronged with a hundred white sails, on either shore of which you see blue ridges of hills full of fertility and rich cultivation.
The grouping of this landscape is perfect: I know of no picture more beautiful. Inexhaustible in details, of boundless extent, and yet marked by such grand and prominent features, that confusion and monotony, the usual defects of a very wide prospect, are completely avoided. Piercefield Park, which includes the ridge of hills from Wind-cliff to Chepstow, is therefore without question the finest in England, at least for situation. It possesses all that Nature can bestow; lofty trees, magnificent rocks, the most fertile soil, a mild climate favourable to vegetation of every kind, a clear foaming stream, the vicinity of the sea, solitude, and, from the bosom of its own tranquil seclusion, a view into the rich country I have described, which receives a lofty interest from a ruin the most sublime that the imagination of the finest painter could conceive,—I mean Chepstow Castle. It covers five acres of ground, and lies close to the park on the side next the town, though it does not belong to it.
England is indebted to Cromwell for almost all her ruined castles, as she is to Henry the Eighth for her crumbling churches and religious houses. The former were destroyed with fire and sword; the latter only suppressed, and left to the corroding tooth of time, and the selfishness and wantonness of man. Both agents have been equally efficacious; and these two great men have produced an effect they did not contemplate, but which resembles that of their persons,—a picturesque one. I strolled through the park on foot, and let the carriage follow by the high road: I reached the ruin at the verge of twilight, which increased the awful grandeur of its appearance. The castle contains several extensive courts, and a chapel; a part of it is in good preservation. Large nut and yew-trees, orchards and beautiful turf, adorn the interior; trailing plants of all kinds festoon the walls. In the least ruinous part of the castle lives a woman with her family, who pays the Duke of Beaufort, the possessor, a rent, for permission to show the ruins to strangers, of whom she consequently demands a shilling. You see that in England, ‘on fait flèche de tout bois,’ and that an English nobleman with an income of sixty thousand a year, neither disdains to take the widow’s mite, nor to laystrangers under regular contribution. To be sure there are some little German sovereigns who unfortunately do much the same.
Satisfied with the employment of my day, as well as tired with climbing, and soaked with rain which had fallen within the last hour, I hastened to my inn, my dishabille, and my dinner,—I felt something unusual in the pocket of my dressing-gown. I pulled it out surprised; and with shame I saw—my purse and pocket-book. It but now occurred to me that I had slipped them into this unaccustomed place from the fear of leaving them on the table.
This shall serve as a lesson to me for the future, never to draw any unfavourable conclusions merely from the embarrassment and confusion of an accused person. The bare thought that others could suspect them may produce the same symptoms in men of irritable nerves and a quick sense of honour, as the consciousness of guilt in others. You will trust to the heart you know so well, that I instantly despatched a letter to my friend the bookseller, exculpating the host and waiter, and enclosing two pounds as some compensation to the latter, which I begged him to deliver with my sincere apologies.—I ate my dinner with more relish after I had atoned for my offence to the best of my power.
Your faithful
L——.
Bristol, December 20th, 1828.
Dear Julia,
I hope you follow me on the map, which will make my letters more intelligible to you, though you cannot enjoy with me the beautiful views, of which I shall bring you back faithful copies in the port-folio of my memory.
I revisited the magnificent castle this morning. A blooming girl was my guide, and formed a graceful contrast to the blackened towers, the dreadful prison of the regicide Marten, and the dark dungeons, to which we descended by a long staircase. I next visited a church with a remarkably beautiful Saxon porch, and a highly ornamented font in the same style. Here the unfortunate Marten lies buried. He was one of Charles the First’s judges, and was imprisoned in Chepstow Castle for forty years, without ever, as it is asserted, losing his spirits. After the first few years his confinement seems to have been less vigorous, and to have gone on gradually becoming less severe. At least the girl showed me three rooms, of which the lowest was a most horrible hole,—while sheciceronisedin the following words: “Here Marten was put at first, while he was wicked; but when he became serious, he was moved a story higher; and at last, when he wasreligious, he had the room with the beautiful view.”
At two o’clock I set out for Bristol on a crowded stage-coach; notwithstanding the violent rain, I with difficulty obtained a place on the box. We crossed a handsome bridge, affording the best point of view of the castle, which stands on a perpendicular rock overhanging the Wye, a position which gives it its peculiarly picturesque character. We kept Piercefield Park, and its wall of rocks on one side the river, long in view. I remarked to the proprietor of the stage, who drove, that thepossessor of this beautiful estate must be a happy man. “By no means,” replied he; “the poor devil is over head and ears in debt, has a numerous family, and wishes with all his heart to find a good purchaser for Piercefield. Three months ago every thing was settled with a rich Liverpool merchant, who was going to buy it for his youngest son; but before the bargain was completed, this son married an actress, the father disinherited him, and the thing went off.” Here was matter for moralizing.
Meantime the weather grew worse; and at length ended in a complete storm. We had it in our backs indeed, but the passage across the Channel was extremely unpleasant: the four horses, all the luggage, and the passengers, were huddled ‘pèle mêle’ into a little boat, which was so crowded one could hardly move. The post next to the horses was really one of danger, for they sometimes shyed at the sails, especially when they were shifted.
On one of these occasions a gentleman fell, together with the box on which he was sitting, directly under them. The good-natured animals, however, only trod on him a little, they did not attempt to kick him. The boat, driven violently by the wind, lay quite on her side; and the waves incessantly dashed over us, and wetted us from head to foot. When we reached the end of our voyage, the landing was equally wearisome and dirty; and I lost, to my great annoyance, a part of Lord Byron’s works. I was told that accidents often happen at this ferry, from the frequent storms and the numerous rocks.
About six months ago the boat went down with the mail, and several persons lost their lives. We could not reach the usual landing-place, where there is a house, and were obliged to disembark on the shore, whence we walked to the inn along a strand of red and white veined marble. Here we got into another stage, filled with twenty persons, and drove (but not so quickly as the mail,) to Bristol.—I could see nothing of this admired city but the bright lamps and gay well-stored shops.
Bath, December 21st. Evening.
When I question my memory what it is that makes the Wye so much more beautiful than most rivers, I find that it is the marked and bold character of its shores, which never fall away into tame monotonous lines, nor exhibit an unmeaning variety: that it is almost always skirted by wood, rocks, or meadows enlivened by houses; seldom by fields, or cultivated land, which though useful are rarely picturesque. Its numerous and bold windings cause an incessant change in the grouping of the shores, so that the same objects present themselves under a hundred different and beautiful aspects. This, by the way, is doubtless the ground of the preference landscape gardeners have given to winding roads over straight, and not that imaginary line of beauty about which so much has been said.
As the objects which present themselves along the Wye are almost always few, and in large masses, they invariably form beautiful pictures,—for pictures require to be bounded or framed. Nature creates according to a standard which we cannot judge of in its total effect; thehighest harmonyof which must therefore be lost to us:—Art strives to form a part of this into an ideal whole, which the eye and mind of man can take in. This is in my opinion the idea which lies at the bottom of landscape gardening. But Nature herself here and there furnishes a perfect pattern or model for such creations of art,—a landscape microcosm; and seldom canmore such models be found within the same distance than in the course of this voyage, where every bend of the river presents a fresh feast ofart, if I may so speak.
Pope somewhere says,
“Pleased Vaga echoes through its winding bounds,And rapid Severn hoarse applause resounds.”
“Pleased Vaga echoes through its winding bounds,And rapid Severn hoarse applause resounds.”
“Pleased Vaga echoes through its winding bounds,And rapid Severn hoarse applause resounds.”
The German language with all its richness is somewhat awkward and intractable for translation, especially from the English, which from being made up of various languages, possesses a peculiar facility in rendering foreign thoughts.[156]To me these two lines appear almost untranslatable: as often as I have attempted it, the thought lost all its grace;—perhaps, however, the awkwardness was mine.
It is no small advantage to the Wye, that two of the most beautiful ruins in the world lie on its banks; and never was I more convinced than here, that a prophet has no honour in his own country. How else would so many Englishmen travel thousands of miles to fall into ecstacies at beauties of a very inferior order to these! I must ask one more question;—why ruins have so much stronger an effect on the mind than the highest perfect specimen of architectural beauty? It seems almost as if these works of man did not attain their full perfection till Nature had tempered and corrected them:—and yet it is well that man should again step in, just at that point where Nature begins to efface all traces of his hand. A vast and well-preserved ruin is the most beautiful of buildings.
I have already mentioned that the environs of Bristol have a high and a deserved reputation. In luxuriance of vegetation and fertility they can be surpassed by none,—in picturesque effect by few; ‘C’est comme la terre promise.’ Whatever one beholds, and (as a gourmand I add) whatever one tastes, is in full perfection.
Bristol, a city of a hundred thousand inhabitants, lies in a deep valley: Clifton, which rises in terraces on the hills immediately above it, seems only a part of the same town: it is easy to conceive that extraordinary effects must result from such a situation. Three venerable Gothic churches rise out of the confused mass of houses in the valley. Like the proud remains of feudal and priestly dominion (for these, though hostile brothers, went hand in hand,) they appear to rear their gray heads with a feeling of their ancient greatness, in scorn of the mushroom growth of modern times. One of them especially, Radcliffe Church, is a wonderful structure;—unfortunately, the sandstone of which it is built has suffered so much from time, that its ornaments are nearly fretted away. I went in while the organ was playing; and although I entered in the most quiet and respectful manner, and placed myself in a corner whence I could catch a stolen glance at the interior, the illiberality of the English Church would not allow me this satisfaction, and the preacher sent an old woman to tell me that I must sit down. As it is not the custom in Catholic churches to interrupt the devotions of a congregation on such light groundseven if strangers go in without any caution to view whatever is worth seeing in the church, I might justly wonder that English Protestant piety should have so little confidence in its own strength, as to be thus blown about by the slightest breath. The riddle was explained to me afterwards: I should have had topayfor my seat, and the truly pious motive wasthe sixpence. However, I had had enough, and left their ‘mummery’[157]without paying.
As soon as I returned to the inn I ordered a post-chaise, seated myself on the driver’s seat,—not like the Emperor of China, as the place of honour, but as the place for seeing,—and began my excursions in the environs. I first visited the warm baths. They are situated just at the beginning of a rocky valley, which has a great resemblance to the Planische Grund near Dresden, only that the rocks are higher and the expanse of water much finer. Just in this spot we met the mayor in his state equipage, much more splendid than that of our kings on the continent. It formed a curious contrast with the solitary rocky scenery. As he passed, the postilion pointed out to me a distant ruined tower called ‘Cook’s Folly,’ the property of a former mayor, a merchant, who ruined himself in building it, and now lives in a ruin. He could not complete the Gothic castle which he began to build in a most beautiful situation; perhaps it is a greater ornament to the scene in its present state.
Ascending from the rocky valley we reached an extensive table-land, which serves as a race-course, and thence over rising ground to Lord de Clifford’s park, the entrance to which is very beautiful. You drive for about a mile and a half on the side of a high hill, through a winding avenue of primeval oaks, planted far enough from each other to stretch out their giant arms on every side to their full extent before they touch. Beneath their branches you catch the finest views of the rich vale of Bristol. It is like a noble gallery of pictures; under every tree you find a different one. To the right, on the rising ground appears a dark belt of plantation edging the green turf. Laurel, arbutus, and other evergreens border the road, till at a sudden turn the house and flower-garden burst upon the eye in all their decorated beauty. At the end of this park lies a ridge of hills, along whose narrow crest you drive some miles, and arrive at a noble sea view. At our feet lay the Russian fleet at anchor. It is bound to the Mediterranean, and in the storm of last week narrowly escaped shipwreck on this coast:—the English declare this was entirely caused by the ignorance and unskilfulness of the sailors. I afterwards made the acquaintance of the captain and five other officers. To my great surprise they spokenoforeign language, so that our conversation was limited to signs: in other respects they seemed a polite and civilized sort of people.
Not far from this park is an interesting establishment called ‘The Cottages.’ The proprietor, Mr. Harford, has endeavoured to realize the ‘beau idéal’ of a village. A beautiful green space in the midst of the wood is surrounded by a winding road; on it are built nine cottages, all of different forms and materials;—stone, brick, wood, &c., and roofed with thatch, tiles, and slate; each surrounded with different trees, and enwreathed with various sorts of clematis, rose, honeysuckle, and vine. The dwellings, which are perfectly detached though they form a whole,have separate gardens, and a common fountain, which stands in the centre of the green, overshadowed by old trees. The gardens, divided by neat hedges, form a pretty garland of flowers and herbs around the whole village. What crowns the whole is, that the inhabitants are all poor families, whom the generous proprietor allows to live in the houses rent free. No more delightful or well-chosen spot could be found as a refuge for misfortune: its perfect seclusion and snugness breathe only peace and forgetfulness of the world.
Immediately opposite to the wood, a modern Gothic castle rears its head at a distance, from amid ancient oaks. I wished to see it, as well as the park around it, but could not get permission. Whenever the high road lies through an English park, a part of the wall is replaced by a ha-ha, or a transparent iron fence, that the passer-by may throw a modest and curious glance into the forbidden paradise: but this effort exhausts the stock of liberality usually possessed by an English land-owner. As it was Sunday too, I gave up all hope of moving the churlish porter to make any exception in my favour: on his brow was clearly written the converse of Dante’s infernal inscription, ‘Voi che venite—dientrarelasciate ogni speranza.’
I returned by way of Clifton, from which Bristol appeared to lie under my feet. The scene was greatly enlivened by the multitude of gaily-dressed church-goers of both sexes, whom I met in every road and lane. In strong contrast with these cheerful groups, was a large house painted entirely black, with white windows, and looking like an enormous catafalque. I was told it was the public hospital, and a gentleman offered to show it to me. The interior was much more attractive than the exterior: its fine spacious apartments, and the exquisite cleanliness which pervades every part, must render it a most comfortable abode for the sick and suffering. In no place did I perceive the slightest offensive smell, except in the apothecary’s shop. The right wing of the building is appropriated to male, the left to female patients; in both, the lower story to medical, the upper to surgical cases. The operating room was remarkably elegant, furnished with several marble basins, into which water was turned by cocks, so that in any part of the room the blood could be instantly washed away. In the centre was a mahogany sort of couch with leather cushions for the patients. In short, there was everything that an ameteur could desire. But beneficent as is their art, surgeons are generally rather unfeeling; the gentleman who accompanied me did not form an exception. In one of the apartments I observed a woman who had completely covered herself with the bed-clothes, and asked him in a low voice, what was her disease. “O,” replied he quite aloud, “that is an incurable case of aneurism; as soon as it bursts she must die.” The shrinking motion and the low groan under the bed-clothes, showed me but too clearly what agony this intelligence caused, and made me deeply regret my inquiry. In one of the men’s wards I saw a man lying in bed, white and motionless as marble; and as we were at a considerable distance, I asked the nature of his disorder. “I don’t know myself,” replied my companion, “but I’ll soon ask him.” “For Heaven’s sake don’t” said I: but he was off in an instant, felt the man’s hand as it lay motionless, and came back saying with a laugh, “He is cured, for he is dead.”
Towards evening I hired one of the little carriages that ply between Bath and Bristol, and drove to the former place. I was alone, and sleptall the way. On waking from my ‘siesta,’ I beheld in the moonlight an extensive illuminated palace on a bare height, and learned that this was the benevolent endowment of a mere private man, for fifty poor widows, who live here in comfort, indeed in luxury. Numerous other rows of lamps soon gleamed in the horizon, and in a few minutes we rolled over the pavement of Bath.
Bath, Dec. 22d.
Since the day on which I communicated to you the important intelligence that the sun had shone, I have not seen his beneficent face. But, in spite of fog and rain, I have wandered about the whole day long in this wonderful city, which, originally built in the bottom of a deep and narrow hollow, has gradually crept up the sides of all the surrounding hills. The magnificence of the houses, gardens, streets, terraces, and semicircular rows of houses called ‘crescents,’ which adorn every hill, is imposing and worthy of English opulence. Notwithstanding this, and the beauty of the surrounding country,fashionhas deserted Bath, and fled with a sort of feverish rage to the unmeaning, treeless and detestably prosaic Brighton. Bath is still much resorted to by invalids, and even the forty thousand opulent inhabitants suffice to enliven it; but the fashionable world is no longer to be seen here. The once celebrated king of Bath, the formerly ‘far-famed Nash,’ has lost more of his ‘nimbus’ than any of his colleagues. He who now fills the office, instead of driving through the streets with six horses and a retinue of servants, (the constantcortégeof his august predecessor,) goes modestly on foot. No Duchess of Queensbury will he send out of the ball-room for not being dressed according to law.
The abbey church made a great impression upon me. I saw it for the first time splendidly lighted, which greatly heightened the singular aspect of its interior. I have often remarked that almost all the ancient churches of England are disfigured by scattered modern monuments. Here, however, there are so many, and they are placed with such an odd kind of symmetry, that the complete contrast they present to the simple and sublime architecture produces a new and peculiar kind of picturesque effect.—Imagine a noble lofty Gothic church, of the most graceful proportions, brilliantly lighted, and divided in the centre by a crimson curtain. The half immediately before you is an empty space, without chair, bench, or altar; the ground alone presents a continual mosaic of gravestones with inscriptions. The walls are inlaid in the same manner up to a certain height, where a horizontal line divides them, without any intervening space, from the busts, statues, tablets and monuments of every kind, of polished black or white marble, or of porphyry, granite, or other coloured stone, which are ranged above:—the whole looks like a gallery of sculpture. Up to the line under these monuments, all was in brilliant light; higher up, it gradually softened away; and under the tracery of the arched roof, faded into dim twilight. The clerk and I were quite alone in this portion of the building, while a still more brilliant light gleamed from the other side of the glowing curtain, whence the softened voices of the congregation seemed to visit us from some invisible sanctuary.
Many interesting names are recorded here; among others, the celebrated wit, Quin, to whom Garrick erected a marble bust with a poetical inscription.—Waller’s bust has lost the nose;—it is asserted that James the Second, in a fit of bigotry, struck it off with his sword shortly after his accession to the throne.
Dec. 23d.
Have you ever heard of the eccentric Beckford—a kind of Lord Byron in prose—who built the most magnificent residence in England, surrounded his park with a wall twelve feet high, and for twelve years suffered nobody to enter it? All on a sudden he sold this wondrous dwelling, Fonthill Abbey, with all the rare and costly things it contained, by auction, and went to Bath, where he lives in just as solitary a manner as before. He has built a second high tower, (there was a celebrated one at Fonthill,) in the middle of a field; the roof of it is a copy of the so-called Lantern of Diogenes, (the monument of Lysicrates,) at Athens. Thither I drove to-day, and could imagine that the view from it must be as striking as it is said to be. There was however no admittance, and I was obliged to content myself with the pictures of my fancy. The tower is still unfinished, though very lofty; and stands, like a ghost, in the wide open solitude of a high table-land. The possessor is said, at one time, to have been worth three millions sterling, and is still very rich. I was told that he was seldom visible, but that when he rode out it was with the following retinue:—First rides a grayheaded old steward; behind him, two grooms with long hunting whips; then follows Mr. Beckford himself, surrounded by five or six dogs; two more grooms with whips close the procession. If in the course of the ride one of the dogs is refractory, the whole train halts, and castigation is immediately applied with the whips; this course of education is continued through the whole ride. Mr. Beckford formerly wrote a very singular, but most powerful romance, in French: it was translated into English, and greatly admired. A high tower plays a conspicuous part in that also: thedénouementis, that the Devil carries off everybody.
I must send you another anecdote or two of this extraordinary man.—When he was living at Fonthill, a neighbouring Lord was tormented by such an intense curiosity to see the place that he caused a high ladder to be set against the wall, and climbed over by night. He was soon discovered, and taken before Mr. Beckford; who, on hearing his name, contrary to his expectations, received him very courteously, conducted him all over his house and grounds in the morning, and entertained him in a princely manner; after which he retired, taking the most polite leave of his Lordship. The latter, delighted at the successful issue of his enterprise, was hastening home; but found all the gates locked, and no one there to open them. He returned to the house to beg assistance; but was told that Mr. Beckford desired that he would return as he had come,—that he would find the ladder standing where he had left it. His Lordship replied with great asperity, but it was of no use; he must e’en return to the place of his clandestine entrance, and climb the ladder. Cured for ever of his curiosity, and venting curses on the spiteful misanthrope, he quitted the forbidden paradise.
After Fonthill was sold, Mr. Beckford lived for a while in great seclusion in one of the suburbs of London. In the immediate neighbourhood was a nursery garden, extremely celebrated for the beauty and rarity of its flowers. He walked in it daily, and paid fifty guineas a-week to the owner of it for permission to gather whatever flowers he liked.
In the evening I visited the theatre, and found a very pretty house, but a very bad play. It was Rienzi, a miserable modern tragedy, which, with the graceless ranting of the players, excited neither tears nor laughter,—only disgust and ennui. I soon left Melpomene’s desecratedtemple, and visited my friend the clerk of the Abbey Church, to ask permission to see the church by moonlight. As soon as he had let me in, I dismissed him; and wandering like a solitary ghost among the pillars and tombs, I called up the more solemn tragedy of life, amid the awful stillness of night and death.
Dec. 24th.
The weather is still so bad, and hangs such a drapery over all distant objects, that I can make no excursions, and am obliged to confine myself to the town; which indeed, by the number and variety of its prospects, affords interesting walks enough. I begin every time with my favourite monumental church, and finish with it. The architect who built this magnificent structure went quite out of the beaten track of ornaments and proportions. On the outside, for instance, near the great door, are two Jacob’s ladders reaching to the roof, where the ascending angels are lost from sight. The busy heaven-stormers are extremely pretty; and the design appears to me conceived completely in the spirit of that fanciful architecture, which blended the most childish with the most sublime; the greatest minuteness of ornaments with the vastest effect of masses; which imitated the whole range of natural productions,—gigantic trunks of trees, and delicate foliage and flowers; awful rocks, and gaudy gems, men and beasts; and combined them all so as to strike our imaginations with wonder, reverence, and awe. This has always appeared to me the true romantic,i. e.true German, architecture;—the offspring of our most peculiar spirit and fashion of mind. But I think we are now wholly estranged from it; it belongs to a more imaginative and meditative age. We may still admire and love its models, but we can create nothing of the same kind, which does not bear the most obvious stamp of flat imitation. Steam-engines and Constitutions now prosper better than the arts,—of whatever kind.—To each age, its own.
As I love contrasts, I went this evening straight from the temple crowded with the dead, to the market-place, equally populous in another way, and equally well lighted, where all sorts of provisions are sold under covered galleries. Every thing here is inviting and elegant; subjects for a thousand master-pieces of Flemish pencils; and a luxurious sight for the ‘gastronome,’ who here contemplateshisbeauties of Nature. Enormous pieces of beef, of a juicy red streaked with golden fat; well-fed poultry, looking as if stuffed with eider-down; magnificent vegetables; bright yellow butter; ripe and fresh fruit, and tempting fish, presented a picture such as my astonished eyes never beheld. The whole was heightened by the brilliancy of a hundred variegated lamps, and decorated with laurel and red-berried holly. Instead of oneWeihnachtstisch,[158]here were a hundred; the caricatures of market-women did admirably for the gingerbread dolls, (Pfefferkuchenpuppen,) and we buyers for the curious and wondering children. The most brilliant assembly could hardly have amused me more. When I saw a grave-looking sheep holding a candle in each foot, and thus lighting himself; or a hanging fowl, in whose rump they had stuck a red wax taper; a calf’s head with a lantern between its teeth, next neighbour to a great gander illuminated by two huge altar tapers; or an ox-tail, through which a gas tube was passed, ending pompously in a tuft of flame,—I made the most diverting comparisonswith an assembly in my native land; and found the resemblances often more striking than those of the celebrated portrait-painters W—— and S——.
Living is very cheap here, especially in the so-called boarding-houses, where a man is well lodged and admirably boarded for two or three guineas a-week, and finds agreeable and easy society: equipages are not wanted, as sedan-chairs are still in use.
Eight-and-twenty hours have at length appeased the angry heavens, and to-day was what is here called “a glorious day,”—a day, that is, in which the sun occasionally peeps out from between the clouds. You may be sure that I took advantage of it: I ascended the hill near the town, from which you have a bird’s-eye view of the whole, and can distinguish almost every separate house. The Abbey church lies, like the kernel, in the centre; the streets radiate upwards in every direction, and in the bottom of the valley the Avon winds like a silver riband. I continued my way along a pretty walk to Prior Park, a large and formerly splendid mansion, built by a haughty Lord, but now possessed by a meek Quaker, who lets the house stand empty, and, true to the simplicity of his faith, lives in the stable.
Thus passed the morning.—By twilight and moonlight I took another walk to the other side of the town, and found the view still more magnificent in the stillness of the clear night. The sky was of a pale green, and on the right hand masses of black deeply indented clouds were piled up. The hills cut their rounded outlines sharply upon the clear sky, while the whole valley was filled with one curtain of blue mist, through which you saw the glimmering of a thousand lamps, without being able to distinguish the houses. It seemed a sea of mist, out of which countless stars twinkled with multiplied rays.
I closed the day with a hot bath in the principal bathing establishment; and found the accommodations convenient, clean and cheap, and the attendants prompt and respectful.
Dec. 26th.
The bad habit of reading in bed occasioned me a laughable misfortune last night. My hair caught fire, and I was forced to bury my head in the bed-clothes to extinguish it. The injury is horrible;—one entire half of my hair was destroyed, so that I have been obliged to have it cut almost close to my head all over. Happily my strength does not reside in my hair.
A letter from you consoled me on waking. Your fable of the nightingale is charming. Had L—— imagined that, and in his twentieth year said, “Be dead to the world till your five-and-thirtieth,” how brilliantly and prosperously could he now (according to the world’s standard) enter it. In the course of that time I too have often accused the world and others; but when dispassionately viewed, this is as foolish as it is unjust. The world is, and will be, the world; and to reproach it with all the evil that accrues to us from it, is to be like the child who would beat the fire because he has burnt his finger in it. L—— should therefore regret nothing; for if he had slept fifteen years like a marmot, he would not have enjoyed animation or consciousness. Let us stick to the belief, ‘que tout est pour le mieux dans ce meilleur des mondes.’
Heartily wishing that you may always clearly perceive this great truth, I take my leave of you most tenderly, and am, as ever,
Your faithful L——.
Salisbury, December 27th, 1828.
Beloved Friend,
Yesterday evening at seven o’clock I left Bath, again by the mail, for Salisbury. My only companion was a widow in deep mourning; notwithstanding which, she had already found a lover, whom we took up outside the town. He entertained us, whenever he spoke of any thing but farming, with those horrible occurrences of which the English are so fond that the columns of their newspapers are daily filled with them. Perhaps he was one of their ‘accident makers,’ for he was inexhaustible in horrors. He asserted that the Holyhead mail (the same by which I came) had been washed away by a waterspout; and horses, coachman, and one of the passengers, drowned.
After some hours the loving pair left me, at a place where the widow was proprietress of an inn (probably the real object of John Bull’s tenderness,) and I was quite alone. My solitude was not of long duration, for a very pretty young girl, whom we overtook in the dark, begged that we would take her on to Salisbury, as she must otherwise pass the night in the nearest village. I very willingly took upon myself the cost of her journey. She was very grateful; and told me she was a dress-maker, and had gone to pass her Christmas with her parents; and that she had staid rather too late, but had reckoned on the chance of getting a cast by the mail.—We reached this city at midnight, where a good supper but a cold and smoky bedchamber awaited me.
December 28th.
Early in the morning I was awakened by the monotonous patter of a gentle rain, so that I am still sitting over my breakfast and my book. A good book is a true electrical machine: one’s own thoughts often dart forth like flashes;—they generally, however, vanish as quickly; for if one tries to fix them at the moment with pen and ink, the enjoyment is at an end; and afterwards, as with dreams, it is not worth the pains. The book by which I electrified myself to-day, is a very ingenious and admirable combination of the fundamentals of history, geography, and astronomy, adapted for self-instruction. These little encyclopædias are really one of the great conveniences of our times. Accurate knowledge of details is indeed necessary to the accomplishment of any thing useful, but the walls must be built before the rooms can be adorned. In either sort of study, superficial or profound, I hold self-instruction to be the most efficacious; at least so it has always been with me. It is, however, certain that many men can, in no way, acquire any real knowledge. If, for instance, they study history, they never perceive the Eternal and the True: to them it remains a mere chronicle, which their admirable memory enables them to keep at their fingers’ ends. Every other science is learned in a like mechanical manner, and consists of mere words. And yetthisis precisely the sort of knowledge commonly called fundamental; indeed, most examiners by profession require no other. The absurdities still committed by these learned persons in many places, would furnish abundance of most diverting anecdotes if they were brought to light. I know a young man who had to undergo a diplomatic examination a short time ago, in a certainResidenz. He was asked “how much a cubic footof wood weighed?” Pity he did not answer, “How much does a gold coin weigh?” or, “How much brains does a dolt’s head contain?” Another was asked in the course of a military examination, “Which was the most remarkable siege?” The respondent (a nationalized German) answered, without the slightest hesitation, “The siege of Jericho, because the walls were blown down with trumpets.” Conundrums might be made out of these examinations; indeed I rather think that tiresome diversion sprung from them.
Many clergymen still ask, “Do you believe in the Devil?” A ‘mauvais plaisant,’ who did not care much for being turned back, lately replied, ‘Samiel, help!’
Evening.
About three o’clock the sky cleared a little; and as I had waited only for that, I jumped into the bespoken gig, and drove as hard as an old hunter would carry me to Stonehenge, the great druidical temple, burial place, or sacrificial altar. The country round Salisbury is fertile, but without trees and in no way picturesque. The wondrous Stonehenge stands on a wide, bare, elevated plain. The orange disk of the cloudless sun touched the horizon just as, astounded at the inexplicable monument before me, I approached the nearest stone, which the setting beams tinged with rose-colour. It is no wonder that popular superstition ascribes this singular group to demoniac power, for scarcely could another such work be achieved with all the mechanical means and contrivances of our times. How then was it possible for a nearly barbarous people to erect such masses, or to transport them thirty miles, the distance of thenearestquarry?[159]Some have maintained that it was merely a sport of Nature, but no one who sees it will assent to this.
I was not the only spectator. A solitary stranger was visible from time to time, who, without seeming to perceive me, had been going round and round among the stones incessantly for the last quarter of an hour. He was evidently counting, and seemed very impatient at something. The next time he emerged, I took the liberty to ask him the cause of his singular demeanour; on which he politely answered, “that he had been told no one could count these stones aright; that every time the number was different; and that this was a trick which Satan, the author of the work, played the curious: that he had within the last two hours confirmed the truth of this statement seven times, and that he should inevitably lose his senses if he tried again.” I advised him to leave off, and go home, as it was growing dark, and Satan might play him a worse trick than this. He fixed his eyes upon me sarcastically, and with what the Scotch call a very ‘uncanny’ expression, looked about him as if for somebody; then suddenly exclaiming “Good-bye, Sir!” strode off, like Peter Schlemil, casting no shadow, (’tis true the sun was set,) with seven-league steps across the down, where he disappeared behind the hill. I now likewise hastened to depart, and trotted on towards the high tower of Salisbury Cathedral, which was just visible in the twilight. Scarcely had I gone a mile, when the high crazy gig broke, and the driver and I were thrown, not very softly, on the turf. The old horse ran off with the shafts, neighing merrily, towards the city. While we were crawling up, we heard the trotting of a horse behind us;—it was the stranger, who galloped by on a fine black horse, and cried out to me, “The Devil sends his best compliments toyou, Sir, ‘au revoir;’” and darted off like a whirlwind. This jest was really provoking. “O, you untimely jester!” exclaimed I, “give us help, instead of your ‘fadaises.’” But the echo of his horse’s hoofs alone answered me through the darkness. The driver ran almost a mile after our horse, but came back without any tidings of him. As there was not even a hut near, we were obliged to make up our minds to walk the remaining six miles. Never did a road seem to me more tedious; and I found little compensation in the wonders which the driver related of his hunter, when, twenty years ago, he was the ‘leader of the Salisbury hunt.’
December 29th.
I have turned this day to very good account, but brought home a violent head-ache in the evening, probably the effect of my last night’s adventure.
Salisbury’s far-famed Cathedral boasts of the highest tower in Europe. It is four hundred and ten feet high,—five feet higher than the Minster at Strasburg, if I mistake not. It is at any rate far more beautiful. The exterior is peculiarly distinguished by an air of newness and neatness, and by the perfection of its details. For this it is indebted to two grand repairs which in the course of time it has undergone; the first, under the superintendence of Sir Christopher Wren; the second, of Mr. Wyatt. The site of this church is also peculiar. It stands like a model, perfectly free and isolated on a smooth-shaven plain of short turf, on one side of which is the Bishop’s palace, on the other high lime-trees. The tower terminates in an obelisk-like spire, with a cross, on which, rather ominously, a weather-cock is planted. This tasteless custom disgraces most of the Gothic churches in England. The tower is five-and-twenty inches out of the perpendicular. This is not visible, except on the inside, where the inclination of the pillars is perceptible. The interior of this magnificent temple is in the highest degree imposing, and has been improved by Wyatt’s genius. It was an admirable idea to remove the most remarkable old monuments from the walls and obscure corners, and to place them in the space between the grand double avenues of pillars, whose unbroken height would almost turn the head giddy. Nothing can have a finer effect than these rows of Gothic sarcophagi, on which the figures of knights or priests lie stretched in their eternal sleep, while their habiliments or armour of stone or metal are lighted with rainbow-tints from the painted windows. Among Templars and other knights, I discovered ‘Richard Longsword,’ who came to England with the Conqueror: near him, a giant figure in alabaster, the sword-bearer of Henry the Seventh, who fell at Bosworth Field, where he fought with two long swords, one in each hand, with which he is here represented.
The cloisters are also very beautiful. Long finely proportioned corridors run at right-angles around the chapter-house, which is supported, like the Remter in Marienburg, by a single pillar in the centre. The bas-reliefs, which surround it in a broad entablature, seem to be of very fine workmanship, but were half destroyed in Cromwell’s time. In the centre stands a worm-eaten oaken table of the thirteenth century, on which—as it seems from tolerably credible tradition—the labourers employed in building the church were paid every evening, at the rate of a penny a-day. The ascent of the spire is very difficult: the latter half must be climbed by slender ladders, like the Stephansthurm in Vienna.At length you reach a little door in the roof, thirty feet under the extreme point. Out of this door, the man who weekly oils the weathercock ascends, in so perilous a manner that it appears inconceivable how a man of seventy can accomplish it. From this door, or rather window, to the top, is, as I have said, a distance of thirty feet, along which there are no other means of climbing than by iron hooks projecting from the outside. The old man gets out of the little window backwards; then, on account of a sort of penthouse over the window, is obliged to bend his body forward, and in that posture to feel for the first hook, without being able to see it. When he has reached it, and caught fast hold, he swings himself up to it, hanging in the air, while he feels out the projection over the window with his feet, after which he climbs from hook to hook. It would certainly be easy to contrive a more convenient and less dangerous ascent; but he has been used to it from his childhood, and will not have it altered. Even at night he has made this terrific ascent, and is delighted that scarcely any strangers, not even sailors, who generally climb the most impracticable places, have ventured to follow him.
As we reached the first outer gallery around the tower, the guide pointed out to me a hawk which hung poised in air twenty or thirty feet above us. “For many years,” said he, “a pair of these birds have built in the tower, and live on the Bishop’s pigeons. I often see one or other of them hanging above the cross, and then suddenly pounce upon a bird: they sometimes let it fall on the roof or gallery of the church, but never stop to pick up prey which has once fallen,—they let it lie and rot there, if I don’t remove it.”
The Bishop’s palace and garden lay in a picturesque group beneath us, and all the chimneys were smoking merrily, for, ‘His Lordship’ was just arrived, but was preparing for a journey to a watering-place. The guide thought that they saw the ‘Lord Bishop’ twice or three times a-year in the cathedral. ‘His Lordship’ never preaches: his sacred functions consist, as it seems, in the spending of fifteen thousand a-year with as much good taste as it has pleased God to bestow upon him;—the labour is sufficiently performed by subalterns. This beautiful Establishment is the only one we on the Continent want to complete our felicity,—the only one which it is worth our while to copy from England. On my return, I walked for some time longer in the darkening church, amid the noble monuments of old heroes, whom my imagination summoned from their tombs.
I took care to secure a more substantial carriage than that of yesterday, and drove very comfortably to Wilton, the beautiful seat of the Earl of Pembroke. Here is a valuable collection of antiques, tastefully arranged by the deceased Earl, who was a great lover of art. It is placed in a broad gallery running round the inner court, communicating with the apartments on the ground-floor, and finely lighted from one side. It affords a most interesting walk, winter and summer, and is within a few steps of every room. The windows are ornamented with the coats of arms, in coloured glass, of all the families with which the Earls of Pembroke have been allied by marriage,—a rich collection, which includes even the royal arms of England. In the halls are placed the coats of armour of the old warriors of the family, and those of their most distinguished prisoners; among them, the Grand Constable Montmorenci, a French Prince of the blood, and several others. Unquestionably these old recollections of a high and puissant aristocracy have their poetical side.
The Châtelaine who conducted me about seemed herself to have crept out of a colossal coat of armour: she was full six feet high, and of a very masculine aspect, nor could anybody be better versed in the history of the Middle Ages. On the other hand, she murdered the names of Roman emperors and Grecian sages most barbarously. She explained some rather equivocal subjects quite circumstantially, and in very droll connoisseur language.
One of the adjoining rooms is filled with family portraits, which derive more of their value and splendour from the hand of Holbein or Vandyke than from the personages they represent. After a certain lapse of time, the nobility of genius outshines that of birth, ‘comme de raison.’ The house contains several other valuable pictures; among which an Interment of Christ by Albrecht Dürer, executed in the most finished manner in water-colours, was the most striking.
The Countess’s garden, upon which the library opens, is laid out in the old French style, and is terminated by a small very richly ornamented temple, which has one great singularity. It was built by Holbein, but does no credit to his taste: it is, on the contrary, an ugly overloaded thing. The garden is extremely pretty and elegant: it reflects honour on English women of rank, that most of them are distinguished for their taste and skill in this beautiful art. We should fall into a great mistake if we hoped that any English gardener whatever were capable of producing such master-pieces of garden decoration as I have described to you in my former letters.[160]These all owe their existence to the genius and the charming taste for the embellishment ofhomewhich characterize their fair owners.
As it was positively forbidden to admit any stranger without a written order from the possessor, I should not have obtained a sight of the house had I not practised a stratagem, which the lord of the mansion will of course forgive, if he ever knows it. I announced myself to the Châtelaine as a Russian relative of the family, with a name she could neither read nor speak.—It is really too annoying to drive four miles for an express purpose, and then to turn back without accomplishing it: I therefore lay myobligéfalsehood entirely at the door of these inhuman English manners. With us, people are not so cruel; and never will an Englishman have to complain of similar illiberality in Germany.
On the other side of the town lies an interesting place, Langford, the seat of the Earl of Radnor; an extensive park, and very old castle of strange triangular form, with enormously massy towers whose walls are like mosaic. In insignificant, low and ill-furnished rooms I found one of the most precious collections of pictures; master-pieces of the greatest painters; hidden treasures, which nobody sees and nobody knows of,—of which so many exist in English private houses. There is a Sunrise and a Sunset by Claude. The morning exhibits Æneas with his followers landing on the happy shores of Italy, and makes one envy the new-comers to the paradise which this picture discloses to them. In the evening scene, the setting sun gilds the magnificent ruins of temples and palaces, which are surrounded by a solitary wild country;—they are allegorical representations of the rise and fall of the Roman Empire. Water, clouds, sky, trees,the transparent quivering atmosphere,—it is all, as ever in Claude, Nature herself. It is difficult to imagine how a man in his five-and-thirtieth year could be a cook and a colour-grinder, and in his five-and-fortieth give to the world such unequalled productions. The wondrously beautiful head of a Magdalen by Guido, whose tearful eyes and warm rosy mouth certainly seem to invite rather to a thousand kisses than to repentance; a Holy Family by Andrea del Sarto, brilliant in all the pomp of colour; and many other ‘chef-d’œuvres’ of the most illustrious masters, riveted me for many hours. A portrait of Count Egmont would have served but ill as a frontispiece to Göthe’s tragedy; for the joyous-hearted, magnificent visionary, here appears a corpulent man of forty, with a bald pate and a thoroughly every-day physiognomy. His friend of Orange, hanging near him, exhibited a face of far different intellectual character. Between them hung the gloomy Alba, who pursued cruelty as a luxury.
Besides the pictures and some antiques, this seat contains a rare and precious curiosity,—a chair or throne of steel, which the city of Augsburgh gave to the Emperor Rudolph the Second, which Gustavus Adolphus stole, and an ancestor of Lord Radnor’s bought at Stockholm. The workmanship is admirable. How do all the fine steel works of our day,—those of Birmingham, or the Berlin iron ornaments—fade before this splendid piece of art into miserable trifles and toys! You think you see before you a work of Benvenuto Cellini; and know not which to admire most, the fine execution and the elegance of the details, or the tasteful and artist-like disposition of the whole.
London, December 31st.
Yesterday I was obliged to sacrifice to my hereditary foe ‘migraine:’ to-day I travelled in continual rain to the metropolis, and shall depart to-morrow morning for France.—The country had little in it attractive; but the conversation on the outside of the coach was the more animated. It turned, during nearly the whole day, on a famous ‘boxing-match,’ in which a Yankee had, it seemed, cheated a John Bull; and, bribed by the principal patrons of the art, had won ten thousand pounds. Cheating, in every kind of ‘sport,’ is as completely in the common order of things in England, among the highest classes as well as the lowest, as false play was in the time of the Count de Grammont. It is no uncommon thing to hear ‘gentlemen’ boast of it almost openly; and I never found that those who are regarded as ‘the most knowing ones’ had suffered in their reputation in consequence;—‘au contraire,’ they pass for cleverer than their neighbours; and you are only now and then warned with a smile to take care what you are about with them. Some of the highest members of the aristocracy are quite notorious for their achievements of this description. I heard from good authority, that the father of a nobleman of sporting celebrity, to whom some one was expressing his solicitude lest his son should be cheated by a ‘Blacklegs,’ answered, “I am much more afraid for the Blacklegs than for my son!”To every country its customs![161]—Another characteristic trait of England, though in a lower step in society, was, that the coachman who drove us had lost two hundred pounds in this same unlucky match, and only laughed at it;giving us significantly to understand that he should soon find another dupe, who should pay it him back with interest. What advances must the ‘march of intellect’ make on the continent before the postillions of the Prince of Tour and Taxis, or the Eilwagen drivers of the Herr von Nagler will be able to lay such bets with their passengers!
Some miles from Windsor we passed through a sort of country uncommon in England, consisting only of sand and pebbles. A magnificent building, with a park and garden, has been erected here,—the New Military College, which is fitted up with all the luxury of a princely residence. The sand and stones made me feel at home,—not so the palace. While I was eyeing the soil with looks of tender affection, ‘car a toute âme bien née la patrie est chère,’ we saw a gray old fox, which with sweeping brush galloped across the heath. Our bet-loving coachman saw him first, and cried out, “By God, a fox! a fox!” “It’s a dog,” replied a passenger. “I bet you five to four ‘tis a fox,” rejoined the steed-compelling hero. “Done!” replied the doubter—and soon had to pay; for it was indeed an indubitable fox, though of extraordinary size. Several hounds, who had lost the scent, now ran in sight, and a few red coats were also visible. All the passengers on the mail screamed and hallooed to them which way the fox was gone, but could not make them understand. The time of the mail is rigorously fixed, and all unnecessary delays forbidden: but here was a national calamity impending; the pack and the hunters hadlost the fox! The coachman drew up, and several sprang down to show the party, which now every moment increased, the right way. We did not get afloat again till we saw the whole hunt once more in full pursuit; whereupon we all waved our hats, and shouted ‘Tally-ho!’ As soon as our consciences were thus entirely set at ease, and the fox delivered over to his inevitable fate, the coachman whipped on his horses to make up for the delay, and the rest of the way we dashed along at a rattling gallop, as if the Wild Huntsman himself were at our heels.
Dover, January 1st, 1829.
The box of the mail-coach is become my throne, from which I occasionally assume the reins of government, and direct four rapid steeds with great skill. I proudly overlook the country, hurryforwards, which every governor cannot boast; and yet wish for wings that I might the sooner get home to you.
I found all the towers in Canterbury decorated with flags in celebration of New-year’s day. I commemorated it in the proudest and most beautiful of all English cathedrals. This romantic edifice, begun by the Saxons, continued by the Normans, and recently restored with great judgment, forms three distinct and yet connected churches; with many irregular chapels and staircases, black and white marble floors, and a forest of pillars in harmonious confusion. The yellow tone of the sandstone is very advantageous, especially in the Norman part of the church, where it is beautifully relieved by the black marble columns. Here lies the brazen effigy of the Black Prince, on a sarcophagus of stone. Over him hang his half-mouldered gloves, and the sword and shield he wore at Poictiers. A number of other monuments adorn the church;—among them, those of Henry the Fourth and Thomas à Becket, who was killed in one of the adjoining chapels. A great part of the old painted window is preserved, and is unrivalledin the splendour of its colours. Some parts of it are only patterns and arabesques, like transparent carpets of velvet: others appear like jewellery formed of every variety of precious stones. But few contain historical subjects. What gives this magnificent cathedral a great pre-eminence over every other in England, is, that there is no screen in the middle to cut and obstruct the view, and you see the whole extent of the aisle,—from four to five hundred paces long,—at one glance. The organ is concealed in one of the upper galleries, and when it sounds produces a magical effect. I timed my visit so luckily, that just as I was going out, almost in the dark, the choristers began to sing, and their beautiful music filled the church, at the same time that the last sunbeam glowed through the window in tints of sapphire and ruby. The Archbishop of Canterbury is primate of England, and the only subject in Great Britain, except the princes of the blood, who has the dignity of prince. I believe, however, he enjoys it only in his see, not in London. This Protestant clergyman has sixty thousand a year and may marry;—more I know not by which to distinguish him from the Catholic ecclesiastical princes.
Calais, Jan. 2nd.
At length I set my foot once more in beloved France. However little advantageous is the first contrast, I yet greet this, my half-native soil, the purer air, the easier, kinder, franker manners, almost with the feeling of a man escaped from a long imprisonment.
We waked at five o’clock in the morning at Dover, and got on board the packet in utter darkness. We had already walked up and down for at least half an hour before there appeared any preparation for sailing. On a sudden the rumour was spread that the ‘boiler’ was damaged. The most timid immediately made their escape to shore; the others cried out for the Captain, who was nowhere to be found. At last he sent a man to tell us that we could not sail without danger, and our luggage was accordingly transferred to a French steam-packet which was to sail at eight o’clock. I employed the interval in seeing the sun rise from the fort which crowns the lofty chalk cliffs above the town. The English, who have money enough to execute every useful plan, have cut a passage through the cliff, forming a kind of funnel, in which two winding staircases lead to the height of two hundred and forty feet. The view from the top is highly picturesque, and the sun arose out of the sea, almost cloudless, over the extensive prospect. I was in such an ecstacy at the scene that I nearly lost my passage. The vessel sailed the moment I was on board. A violent wind carried us over in two hours and a half. The sea-sickness, this time, was endurable; and an excellent dinner, such an one as no English inn can offer, soon restored me. This Hotel (Bourbon) is, as far as cookery goes, one of the best in France.
Jan. 3rd.
My first morning walk in France was quite delicious to me. The unbroken sunshine; the clear sky, which I had not seen for so long; a town in which the houses are not put in eternal mourning by coal smoke, and stood out bright and sharp from the atmosphere, made me feel at home again, and I walked down to the harbour to take my last farewell of the sea. There it lay before me, boundless everywhere except in one spot, where a black line of something like cloud, probably the concentrated fog and smoke of the island, denoted theexistence of the English coast. I followed the jetty (a sort of wooden dam), and found myself at length entirely alone. I saw nothing living but a sea-bird, swimming by with the swiftness of lightning, often diving, and then after an interval of several minutes reappearing at some distant spot. He continued this sport a long while; and so agile and full of enjoyment did the creature seem, that I could almost fancy he took pleasure in exhibiting his feats to me. I was giving in to a train of fancies which insensibly grew out of this exhibition, when I heard the step and the voices of an English family behind me,—and away we went, bird and I.
On the ramparts I met a Frenchbonnewith two English children, miracles of beauty, and very elegantly dressed in scarlet cachemire and white. The youngest had taken fast hold of a tree; and with true English love of liberty and determination, refused in the most decided manner to go home. The poor French girl vainly murdered all sorts of English coaxings and threats which she could command. “Mon darling, come, allons,” exclaimed she, in a tone of distress. “I wont,” was the laconic answer. The stubborn little creature interested me so much that I walked up to the tree to try my luck with her. I had better success; for after a few jokes in English, she followed me readily, and I led her in triumph to herbonne. But as I was going away, the little devil seized me with all her might by the coat, and said, laughing aloud, “No no, you shan’t go now; you forced me away from the tree, and now I’ll force you to stay with us!” And I actually could not escape, till, amid playing and battling, during which she never quitted her hold of me, we reached the door of her parents’ house. “Now I have done with you,” cried the little thing, while she ran shouting and laughing into the house. “You little flirt!” cried I after her, “French education will bring forth little fruit in you.”
Returning to the town, I visited the celebrated B——. I see you turn over the ‘Dictionnaire Historique et des Contemporains’ in vain. Has he distinguished himself in a revolution, or a counter-revolution? Is he a warrior or a statesman? ‘Vous n’y êtes pas.’ He is less and greater,—as you choose to take it. In a word, he is the most illustrious, and was, in his time, the most puissant of dandies London ever knew. At one period B—— ruled a whole generation by the cut of his coat; and leather breeches went out of fashion because all men despaired of being able to reach the perfection of his. When at length, for weighty reasons, he turned his back on Great Britain, he bequeathed to the land of his birth, as his last gift, the immortal secret of starched cravats, the unfathomableness of which had so tormented the ‘élégants’ of the metropolis that, according to the ‘Literary Gazette,’ two of them had put an end to their lives in despair, and a youthful Duke had died miserably ‘of a broken heart.’ The foundation of this malady had however been laid earlier. On one occasion, when he had just received a new coat, he modestly asked B—— his opinion of it. B——, casting a slight glance at it, asked, with an air of surprise, “Do you call that thing a coat?” The poor young man’s sense of honour received an incurable wound.
Although it is no longer dress by which a man gives the ton in London, it is merely the vehicle that is altered—not the thing. The influence which Br——, without birth or fortune, without a fine person or a superior intellect, merely by a lofty sort of impudence, a drolloriginality, love of company, and talent in dress, acquired and maintained for many years in London society, forms an admirable criterion by which the tone and quality of that society may be estimated; and as I have briefly described in my former letters some of those who now occupy the place B—— once filled, you will perhaps agree with me, that he excelled them in good-humour and social qualities, as well as in innocence of manners. It was a more frank, and, at the same time, more original and harmless folly, which bore the same comparison to that of his successors, that the comedy and the morality of Holberg do to those of Kotzebue.
Play at length accomplished what even the hostility of the heir to the throne could not. He lost every thing, and was obliged to flee; since which time he has lived in Calais, and every bird of passage from the fashionable world dutifully pays the former patriarch the tribute of a visit, or of an invitation to dinner.