‘Rex Judæorum’ gave a magnificent dinner, the dessert of which alone, as he told me, cost a hundred pounds. I sat next to a very clever woman, Mrs. A——, the friend of the Duke of W——, a very characteristic, acute, un-English physiognomy,—you may think what an ‘enragée’ politician. I must have annoyed her excessively; in the first place I am a great Canningite; in the second, I hate politics at dinner. We had a great exhibition of splendour. The table service was of vermillion and silver; that of the dessert, I think, all gold. Under the portrait of Prince Metternich (a present from the original) in an adjoining room, was a large gold box, perhaps a copy of the Ark of the Covenant. A concert succeeded the dinner, at which Mr. Moschelles played as enchantingly as his wife looked. It was not till two o’clock that I got away to a rout at the Duke of Northumberland’s, a small party of about a thousand persons. Music was performed in an immense picture-gallery, at thirty degrees of Reaumur. The crowd and bustle was however so great that we heard little of it. The atmosphere was like that of the black-hole at Calcutta. Are these really the amusements of civilized nations!
May 31st.
The rich Lady L——, with whose ‘black diamonds’ her complexion forms the most agreeable contrast, and whose ‘air chiffonné’ is quite original, showed me her bazaar this morning. It is no common one, for it contained jewels to the amount of three hundred thousand reichsthalers. The whole boudoir full of perfumes, flowers, and rarities, the ‘clair obscur’ of rose-coloured curtains, and the Marchioness herself in a dress of yellow gauze, reclined on her chaise longue ‘plongée dans une douce langueur;’—it was a pretty picture of ‘refinement.’ Diamonds and pearls, pens and ink, books, letters, toys and seals, and an unfinished purse, lay before her. Among the seals, two were piquant, from their contrast,—the one from Lord Byron:
“Love will find its wayWhere wolves would fear to stray.”
“Love will find its wayWhere wolves would fear to stray.”
“Love will find its wayWhere wolves would fear to stray.”
The other says, with true French ‘philosophie,’ ‘Tout lasse, tout casse, tout passe.’ Nothing, however, was so common in the house as portraits of the Emperor Alexander who had paid great attention to the Marchioness at V——, and whose image had been thus multiplied by gratitude. Her husband was ambassador there, and used his English prerogative to its full extent. Once he boxed with a ‘fiacre’ driver: another time he presented the Archduchess, and, if I mistake not, the Empress herself, to his wife, instead of the reverse;—then he ran into the kitchen to stab his cook for having offended the Marchioness: ‘enfin, il faisant la pluie et le beau tems à V——; ou plutôt l’orage et la grêle.’
Just conceive how ‘disappointed’ the poor lady must be, after so long ruling on the Continent, ‘malgré ses diamans, son rang, et sa jolie mine,’ not to be able to be really and truly fashionable. But this aristocracy of fashion is more difficult to attain to than the highest rank of freemasonry, and much more capricious than that venerable institution, though both alike make something out of nothing.
I dined at Lord Darnley’s, where I met Lord Bloomfield, formerly a conspicuous man, and great favourite of the King’s ‘du tems de ses frédaines.’ There was also the Archbishop of York, a majestic old man, who began life as a private tutor, and has reached this elevated station by the patronage of his pupils. Nothing can be at once more ugly and more laughable than the demi-toilette of an English Archbishop. A short schoolmaster’s wig ill-powdered, a black French coat, and a little black silk ladies’ apron hung over the inexpressibles in front, just as our miners hang theirs behind.
We were extremely well entertained with game and excellent fruits from Cobham; and after dinner drove to a concert, which was very different from any I had heard here. These concerts were set on foot by several noblemen and distinguished persons, admirers of the music of Handel, Mozart, and the old Italian masters, whose compositions are here exclusively performed. It’s long since I had such a treat! What is the modernTrillilirencompared with the sublimity of that old church music? I felt transported back to the days of my childhood, a feeling which always strengthens the soul for days, and gives it a fresher, lighter flight. The singing was excellent throughout, and often of an unearthly beauty in its simplicity; for it is inconceivable what a power God has given to the human voice when rightly employed, and poured forth in a simple and sustained flow. Handel’s choruses in the Oratorio of Israel in Egypt, make you think youfeelthe night which overshadowed Egypt, and hear the tumult of Pharaoh’s host, and the roaring of the sea that engulfs them in its waters.
I could not bring myself to listen to ball-fiddling after these sacred tones, and therefore retired to my own room at twelve o’clock, willingly leaving Almack’s and another fashionable ball unvisited. I shall carry the echo of this music of the spheres into my dreams, and, borne on its wings, shall take a spiritualized flight with you, my Julia: ‘Are you ready? Now we fly.’
June 1st.
My old B—— waked me very early, which he never does unless he has a letter from you to give me. On all lesser occasions he lets me sleepon, however particularly I may have desired him to call me. His apology always is, “You were so sound asleep!”
It is really lucky that I have not that sort of vanity which is intoxicated by praise, otherwise you would make a complete fool of me. Alas! I know myself too well, and a hundred faults which your love but half perceives. The little devil whom you attack certainly often possesses me. But he is tolerably innocent, often a poor foolish, honest little devil, of a sort that stands midway between angel and devil, as to the morality of the business;—in a word, a genuine weak child of man. But as he displeases you, poor little imp, I shall put him into a bottle, like Hofmann, and cork him down with Solomon’s seal. From this time I shall produce only the Herrnhüter before you:—you know I passed my youth among that sect, ‘et si je m’en ressens, je ne m’en ressens guères.’
I shall certainly be present at the fancy-ball you mean to give in imitation of that at Brighton. Nobody will know me, for the good reason that I shall be invisible: I shall only imprint a kiss on your forehead, and then be off like a thought:—be on the watch therefore!
June 3d.
I wandered yesterday from the regions of the gay world once more into the city, and observed the toiling industry which is continually producing some fresh article of luxury. Every day sees some new invention. Among them may be reckoned the countless advertisements, and the manner of putting them ‘en evidence.’ Formerly people were content to paste them up; now they are ambulant. One man has a pasteboard hat, three times as high as other hats, on which is written in great letters, “Boots at twelve shillings a pair,—warranted.” Another carries a sort of banner, on which is represented a washerwoman, and the inscription, “Only three-pence a shirt.” Chests like Noah’s ark, entirely pasted over with bills, and of the dimensions of a small house, drawn by men or horses, slowly parade the streets, and carry more lies upon them than Münchausen ever invented.
I arrived at Mr. R——’s very tired, and accepted an invitation to dine with him at his counting-house. During dinner we philosophized on the subject of religion. ‘R—— est vraiment un très bon enfant,’ and more obliging than most men of his class,—whenever he thinks he risks nothing by it, which one cannot blame him for. In our religious discussion he had somewhat the best of it, for he is of the ancient nobility in matters of faith: they are the true aristocrats in this subject, and will hear of no innovation or reform. I wound up by saying, with Göthe,Alle Ansichten sind zu loben; and drove in a crazy hackney-coach back to the ‘West End of the Town,’—where there are neither Jews nor Christians, but only Fashionables and Nobodies,—to hear Pasta sing at Mrs. P——’s, and to play écarté, de moitié with Lord H——’s friend.
I came home at four o’clock, fell asleep by rosy day light, and fancied my bed was the moss of a forest. I was waked by a piteous cry: I looked around, and saw a poor devil come plump down through the air from the top of a high tree, and fall on the ground near me. Groaning, and pale as ashes, he crawled up, and cried out that it was all over with him. I was hastening to help him when a creature like an inkstand with a stopper came up, and, with heavy curses, gave the half-dead man several blows with his stopper. I watched my time, pulled out the stopper; and as theink streamed forth, he changed himself into a Moor in a splendid silver jacket and elegant costume, who cried out laughing, that if I would only let him alone, he would shew me such things as I never saw before. Now began such conjurations as left all the Pinettis and Philadelphias in the world far behind. A large closet changed its contents every minute; and all the treasures of Golconda, with unheard-of curiosities, were presented to my view.
My dream went on increasing in extravagance. Did you ever hear of such mad visions as haunt me here? It’s the melancholy fog, the suffocating air of London, which clouds my senses. I send them to you therefore, that you may let them out in our own sunshine, and on their heavy wings I lay a thousand affectionate greetings of your faithful Friend,
L——.
London, June 5th, 1827.
This morning I paid a visit to Mrs. Hope, and saw her husband’s collection of works of art more in detail. A very beautiful Venus by Canova was peculiarly interesting to me, having seen it some years ago, unfinished, in the ‘atélier’ of that delightful artist in Rome; it then left a more agreeable impression on my mind than any of his works.
Among the pictures, I was particularly struck with the infamous Cesare Borgia, by Correggio. What a sublime villain! He stands in the most intrepid manly beauty; vigour and loftiness of mind beam from every feature; in the eyes alone lurks the ferocious tiger. The collection is peculiarly rich in pictures of the Flemish school; many of them are of inimitable truth, which I freely confess has often a greater charm for me than even the perfect representation of an Ideal, if that does not happen to hit some kindred conception in my own mind.
Thus a fine stately old Dutch burgher’s wife, drinking down a glass of wine with great ‘délice,’—her husband wrapped in his cloak with the bottle out of which he has just helped her still in his hand, while he looks at her with good-natured pleasure,—was to me a very attractive subject.
So, likewise, some officers of the sixteenth century in their handsome and appropriate dress, carousing after their hard and bloody toils: and several others, equally true to nature. Among the landscapes I made acquaintance with a Hobbima, which has the greatest resemblance to the manner of Ruysdael. Fruit, which almost deceived the sense, by Van Huysum and Van Os. Houses, in which every tile is given, by Van der Meer. Several Wouvermans, Paul Potters, &c. &c.—nothing was wanting to complete the richness of the collection. Only the modern English pictures were bad.
The rest of the day I staid at home, to hallow the birthday of my good mother, alone and in quiet.
June 7th.
As a sample of the necessities of a London dandy, I send you the followingstatement by my ‘fashionable’ washerwoman, who is employed by some of the most distinguished ‘élégans,’ and is the only person who can make cravats of the right stiffness, or fold the breasts of shirts with plaits of the right size. An ‘élégant,’ then, requires per week,—Twenty shirts; twenty-four pocket-handkerchiefs; nine or ten pair of ‘summer trowsers;’ thirty neck-handkerchiefs (unless he wears black ones;) a dozen waistcoats; and stockings ‘á discretion.’
I see your housewifely soul aghast. But as a dandy cannot get on without dressing three or four times a day, the affair is ‘tout simple,’ for he must appear,—
1st. In breakfast toilette,—a chintz dressing-gown and Turkish slippers.
2nd. Morning riding dress,—frock coat, boots and spurs.
3rd. Dinner dress,—dress coat and shoes.
4th. Ball dress, with ‘pumps,’ a word signifying shoes as thin as paper.
At six o’clock the Park was so full that it was like a rout on horseback, only much pleasanter; instead of carpets or chalked floors there was the green turf, a fresh breeze instead of stifling heat and vapour; and instead of tiring one’s own legs, one made the horse’s do all the work.
Before I rode thither I called on Princess E—— and found three young and handsome ‘ambassadrices en conférence, toutes les trois profondement occupées d’une queue;’ namely, whether it was necessary to wear one at the queen of Würtemberg’s, or not.
At a ball this evening, at the forementioned Marchioness of Londonderry’s, I saw the Polonaise and the Mazurka danced here for the first time,—and very badly. We supped in the Statue Gallery. Many ladies had hung shawls and other articles of dress on the statues, which dreadfully shocked one’s feeling for art. At six I came home, and am writing to you while they are closing my shutters to make an artificial night. The valets here have a sad life of it, and can only sleep out of hand, if I may say so, or like watchmen, in the day.
June 13th.
I have already told you that one is invited here to a Royal Prince, just as in some other places, among intimate friends, to a dainty dish. I was thus invited yesterday to dine with the Duchess of Gloucester, and to-day with the Duke of Sussex. This Prince, who is ‘brouillé’ with the King, has gained great popularity by his liberal opinions, and quite deserves it. He has been much on the Continent, and likes the German mode of life. Our language is perfectly familiar to him, as indeed it is to most of his brothers. In compliment to him, after the ladies left the table, cigars were brought, and more than one smoked, which I never before saw in England. Monsieur de Moutron told a great many droll stories, with genuine French address. But the most amusing person was Major Keppel, the Persian traveller, who related some rather ‘scabreuses’ but amazingly ‘piquantes’ anecdotes, which he would not commit to print, and which I reserve till we meet. In the morning I drive to Ascot with young Captain R——, and shall visit Windsor, to make some break in this life of uniform dissipation. It is supposed that the races will be unusually brilliant, as the King is to be present, and his horses are to run.
Windsor, June 14th.
After a rapid drive of twenty-five English miles,—partly through Windsor Park, behind which the Castle, the residence of so many kings, rears its head,—we reached the wide and barren heath of Ascot, where the races are held. The place presented a perfect picture of pleasuring encampment. Endless lines of tents for horse and man; streets of carriages along the course, chiefly filled with pretty women; high stands, consisting of three or four stages one above another, with the King’s stand at the goal;—all this enlivened by twenty or thirty thousand people, of whom many have been encamped here five or six days:—such are the leading features of the motley picture. One part forms a sort of fair, where among the other booths and tents,—like a Liberty or Free Quarter[58]in the middle ages,—are to be found various games of hazard, elsewhere severely forbidden.
The ladies in the carriages are provided with excellent breakfasts, and champagne, which they distribute with great hospitality. I found many old friends, and made some new acquaintances; among others, an extremely agreeable woman, Lady ——, who invited me to dine at her cottage. As the races ended for to-day at six o’clock, we drove to T—— Park, through a most beautiful country, so thickly studded with trees that spite of its ploughed fields it had the appearance of a cultivated wood. We arrived before the family, and found the house open, but without a servant or any living creature in it. It was like the enchanted dwelling of a fairy, for a more lovely abode cannot be conceived. Could you but have seen it! On a rising ground, half-concealed by the most magnificent old trees, stood a house whose various jutting parts, built at different periods, and here and there hidden by the shrubberies, never permitted the eye to catch its entire outline. A sort of colonnade of rose-trees, covered with flowers, led directly into the hall; and passing through some other apartments and a corridor, we reached the dining-room, where a table stood richly covered,—but still no human being was visible. The garden lay before us, a perfect paradise, lighted by the glow of the evening sun. Along the whole house, now projecting, now receding, were verandas of various forms, and clothed with creeping plants. These formed a border to the gayest flower-garden, covering the whole slope of the hill. Close upon the edge of it was a deep and narrow green valley; behind which the ground rose again and formed a higher line of hill, the side of which was clothed with huge beeches. At the end of the valley the near view was terminated by water. In the distance, above the crown of trees, was seen the ‘Round Tower’ of Windsor Castle, with the majestic royal banner floating in the blue air. This was the only object to remind us that Nature, or some beneficient fairy, did not reign alone here; but that man, with his pleasures, his pomps, and his necessities, was near at hand. Like a beacon-tower of ambition it looked down upon the peaceful cottages; alluring the gazer to a higher but more deceitful enjoyment, which he who obtains buys only with his own grievous loss. Peace and contentment abide in the valley.
My poetical ‘extase’ was interrupted by my fair hostess, who was greatly amused at our description of her enchanted palace, and immediately took care that we should be shown to our rooms, to make our toilet, which the dust and heat rendered very necessary. An excellent dinner, with iced champagne and delicious fruits, was very grateful, and we remained at table till midnight. Coffee and tea, with music, occupied two hours more, the latter of which, I must in all sincerity confess, we could willingly have dispensed with.
After our agreeable evening a rather disagreeable incident awaited me. As I was going to bed B—— began to exclaim that ill-luck followed him everywhere.
“Why, what has happened?”
“O Lord! if I could help it I would not tell, but it must come out.”
“Now, Devil take you, make an end; what is it?”
The confused-headed old fellow had put a purse with five and twenty pounds I gave him into the pocket of the carriage, instead of into the seat; and, like Kotzebue’s stupid country squire, took it out in the tumult of the booths to pay for a glass of beer, changed a sovereign, because as he said he had no small money, and then carefully put the purse in the same place again. It followed, as a matter of course in England, that when he returned to the carriage it was gone.
Richmond, June 13th.
This morning we visited the Castle, which is now completing according to the old plan, and is already the vastest and most magnificent residence possessed by any sovereign in Europe. The time was too short to see the interior, which I therefore deferred to another opportunity. I only paid a visit to the Duchess of C——, who lives in the great tower and enjoys a delicious view from her lofty balcony. Among her attendants was a beautiful Greek boy in his national costume, scarlet, blue, and gold, with naked legs and feet. He was saved from the massacre of Scio by being hidden in an oven. He is now become a perfect Englishman, but has retained something inexpressibly noble and foreign in his air. At one o’clock we returned to the race-ground; and this time I received my breakfast (luncheon) from the hands of another beauty. At the close of the races we drove to Richmond, where R——’s regiment is quartered, and passed a very joyous evening with the officers. The universal competence of England permits a far more luxurious life than military men enjoy with us. These gentlemen deny themselves nothing, and their mess is better served throughout than many a princely table in Germany.
In the morning this regiment of Hussars and a regiment of Lancers are to be reviewed by an Inspecting General, which I shall stay to see.
June 16th.
The regiment went through its business very well; with less affectation,—perhaps with less precision,—than our marvellously trained three-year horse-soldiers; but with more true military coolness, and with the steadiness and ease resulting from long habit: all their evolutions too were more rapid, from the excellence of their horses, with which those of the Continent are not to be compared. The English cavalry has gained immensely in command of the rein, and in military seat, since the last war,which is mainly to be ascribed to the care and attention of the Duke of Wellington: the men had their horses as well in hand as the best of ours. The extraordinary thing, according to our notions, was to see the perfect ease with which fifty or sixty officers in plain clothes,—several General officers among them, some in undress jackets and top-boots, some in frock-coats and coloured cravats,—took part in the review, and thronged around the Inspecting General, who with his two aids-de-camp were the only men in uniform, except the regiment. Nay, even some supernumerary officers of the regiment itself, not on actual service, rode about with him in civil dress and shoes,—a sight which would have given such shock to the nerves of a —— general, as would have endangered his intellects for ever. In a word, one sees here more of the reality; with us, more of the form. Here, ’tis true, the clothes do not make the man; and this simplicity is sometimes very imposing.
R—— told me that this regiment was originally formed by the Tailors’ Company, at the time of the threatened French invasion, and at first consisted entirely of tailors. They are now transformed into very sturdy martial hussars, and fought with great distinction at La Belle Alliance.
June 18th.
Since the day before yesterday I have returned to the old track. I ‘débutai’ with four balls, and a dinner at Lord Caernarvon’s, where I met Monsieur Eynard, the celebrated Philhellenist, whose pretty wife manifests an equal enthusiasm for the Greek cause. Yesterday I dined at Esterhazy’s, and met a young Spaniard whom I could not help wishing an actor, that he might play Don Juan, for he seemed to me the perfect Ideal of that character. With the tones of the dramatic Pasta, whom one hears every evening, ringing in my ears, I went to bed.
This evening there was a concert at the tall Duke’s, where every body was in raptures at old Velluti, because he sang well once upon a time. He lives here upon his ancient fame. From thence I went to one of the prettiest balls I have seen in London, at the house of a Scotch woman of rank. The largest room was entirely decorated with paper lamps made in the forms of various flowers, very tastefully grouped.
As we got into our carriages at six o’clock, by sunshine, the ladies had a most strange appearance. No ‘fraicheur’ could stand this test: they changed colour like chameleons. Some looked perfectly blue, some mottled, most of them death-like, their locks hanging about, their eyes glassy. It was frightful to see how the blooming rosebuds of lamplight were suddenly changed by the sunbeams into faded withered roses.
June 23rd.
What say you, dear Julia, to a breakfast given to two thousand people? Such an one took place to-day in the ‘Horticultural Gardens,’ which are extensive enough to accommodate that number of persons conveniently. Not that there was any deficiency of horrible crowding in the tents in which the provisions were placed,—especially where the prize fruits were exhibited. As soon as the prizes were distributed, they were devoured in the twinkling of an eye, in the coarsest and most unseemly manner. There was one Providence pine which weighed eleven pounds; deep red and green ones of not much smaller dimensions; strawberries as big as smallapples; and the rarest choice of delicious fruits of all kinds. The fête, on the whole, was gay, and of an agreeable rural character.
The smooth turf, and the well-dressed company that trod it; the tents and groups among the shrubs; perfect masses of roses and flowers of every kind, produced the most cheerful, agreeable scene. I drove there with our Ambassador, with whom I returned at seven in the evening. We could not help laughing at the strange industry of an Irishman, who affected to light us to our carriages, with a lantern in which there was, of course, no light, as it was broad day. By this piece of manual wit he earned a shilling from the merry and good-natured. One of his English comrades called out to him, “You are showing the way to liberal people.” “Oh!” said he, “if I did not know them for such, I should not go with them.” Odd enough too were the Tyrolese singers, who are in great fashion; they call every body, even the King, who talks German with them, ‘Du’ (thou), and are strangers to all false shame or fear of man. It is comical enough to see one of them go up to Prince Esterhazy, to whose patriotic favour they are chiefly indebted for their great vogue, put out his hand to him and exclaim, “Nun, was machst Du, Esterhazy?” (literally, “Well, what art thou about, Esterhazy?”) The little female in this party of wonderful animals came up to me to-day and said, “I have been looking at thee a long time, for thou art so like my dear John, that I must give thee a kiss.” The offer was not very tempting, for the girl is ugly; but as His Majesty himself has kissed her (of which there is a good caricature in the shops), the proposal is now esteemed flattering.
June 26th.
The Duke of Northumberland had the kindness to show me his fine palace to-day in detail. I here found what I had long vainly desired to see,—a house in which not only the general effect is that of the highest splendour and elegance, but every thing, the greatest as well as the smallest, is executed with equal exactness and perfection,—‘ou rien ne cloche.’
Such an Ideal is in this instance completely realized. You do not find the smallest trifle neglected, not a line awry, not a speck of dirt, nothing faded, nothing out of fashion or keeping, nothing worn out, nothing sham, not an article of furniture, not a window, or a door, which is not, in its way, a model of workmanship.
This extraordinary perfection has indeed cost several hundred thousand pounds, and doubtless no little trouble; but it is perhaps unique in its kind. The richest embellishment from works of art and curiosities is also not wanting. The arrangement of the latter on terrace-formed shelves covered with violet velvet, behind which are looking-glasses in one piece, is very tasteful. One of the most striking things is the marble staircase, with a railing of gilded bronze. The hand-rail of polished mahogany at the top is a curious piece of workmanship: by some contrivance, which remains a secret, the wood is so put together that it is impossible to discover a single joint from top to bottom. The whole seems to be made of one piece, or is so really. Another remarkable thing is the false ‘porte cochère’ in the outer wall, which is only opened on occasion of a great press of carriages; and when closed, cannot be detected in the façade. It is of iron, and so completely masked by a coating of composition stoneand a false window, that it cannot be distinguished from the rest of the house.—Of the pictures another time.
At the Duke of Clarence’s, in the evening, I made the acquaintance of a very interesting man,—Sir Gore Ouseley, late ambassador to Persia, who was accompanied by Mr. Morier, the author of Hadji Baba, as his secretary of legation. I must tell you two or three characteristic anecdotes of that country, which I heard from him.
The present Shah was held in such a state of dependence by his prime minister, Ibrahim Khan, who had placed him on the throne while yet a child, that he had little more than the name of a ruler. It was impossible for him to make any resistance, since every province or city throughout the empire was governed, without exception, by relations or creatures of the minister. At length the Shah determined to withdraw himself at all risks from such a bondage, and devised the following energetic means, which bear the genuine stamp of Oriental character. According to the ancient institutions of the country, there exists a class of soldiers, thinly scattered through all the principal towns, called the King’s guard. These obey no order that does not proceed immediately from the King himself, and bear his own private signet: this guard has thus remained the only body independent of the minister, and the sole sure support of the throne. The King now secretly despatched orders, written by his own hand, to the chief of this faithful band, requiring them on a particular day and hour to put to death all Ibrahim’s relations throughout the kingdom. On the appointed day the Shah held a Divan, sought to bring on a dispute with Ibrahim, and when the latter assumed his usual lofty tone, commanded him immediately to retire to the state prison. The minister smiled, and replied, “that he would go, but that the King would be pleased to consider that the governor of every one of his provinces would call him to account for this act.” “Not now, friend Ibrahim,” exclaimed the King gaily,—“Not now.” Then drawing out his English watch, and casting a withering glance at the perplexed minister, he coolly added, “At this minute the last of your blood has ceased to breathe, and you will soon follow.” And so it happened.
The second anecdote shows that the Shah acts on the principle of the French song, which says, “quand on a dépeuplé la terre, il faut la répeupler aprés.”
At Sir Gore’s audience of leave, he begged the Shah graciously to tell him what was the number of his children, that he might give his own monarch correct information on so interesting a subject, provided, as was probable, he should make any inquiry. “A hundred and fifty-four sons,” replied the Shah. “May I venture to ask your Majesty how many children?” The word daughters, according to the rules of Oriental etiquette, he dared not to pronounce, and indeed the general question was, according to Persian notions, almost an offence. The King, however, who liked Sir Gore very much, did not take it ill. “Ha ha! I understand you,” said he laughing; and called to the chief of his eunuchs, “Musa, how many daughters have I?” “King of kings,” answered Musa, prostrating himself on his face, “five hundred and sixty.” When Sir Gore Ouseley repeated this conversation to the Empress-mother in Petersburg, she only exclaimed, “Ah, le monstre!”
June 29th.
As the season, thank Heaven, now draws near its close, I project a tour to the north of England, and Scotland, whither I have received several invitations, but had rather preserve my liberty in order to scour the country ‘à ma guise,’ if time and circumstances permit.
To-day we had the finest weather I have seen in England; and as I returned from the country in the evening, after an early dinner at Count Münster’s, I saw, for the first time, an Italian light on the distance,—shades of blue and lilac as rich and as soft as a picture of Claude’s.
‘A propos,’ among the notabilia for imitation I must mention a flower-table of the Countess’s. The top is a crystal-clear glass, under which is a deep box or tray filled with wet sand, with a fine wire net over it, in the interstices of which fresh flowers are closely stuck. The tray is pushed in, and you have the most beautiful flower-picture to write or work over. If you wish to regale yourself with the fragrance, you may open the glass cover, or remove it entirely.
Children’s balls are now the order of the day, and I went to one of the prettiest this evening at Lady Jersey’s. These highborn northern children had every possible advantage of dress, and many were not without grace; but it really afflicted me to observe how early they had ceased to be children;—the poor things were, for the most part, as unnatural, as unjoyous, and as much occupied with themselves, as we great figures around them. Italian peasant-children would have been a hundred times more graceful and more engaging. It was only at supper that the animal instinct displayed itself more openly and unreservedly, and, breaking through all forms and all disguises, reinstated Nature in her rights. The pure and lovely natural feeling, however, was the tenderness of the mothers, which betrayed itself without affectation in their beaming eyes, made many an ugly woman tolerable, and gave to the beautiful a higher beauty.
A second ball at Lady R——’s presented the hundredth repetition of the usual stupid throng, in which poor Prince B——, for whose corpulence these squeezes are little adapted, fainted, and leaning on the banister, gasped for air like a dying carp. Pleasure and happiness are certainly pursued in very odd ways in this world.
July 3rd.
This afternoon I rode by a long circuitous way to eat a solitary fish dinner at Greenwich. The view from the Observatory is remarkable for this,—that almost the whole surface of ground you overlook is occupied by the city of London, which continually stretches out its polypus arms wider and wider, and swallows up the villages in its neighbourhood, one after another. Indeed, for a population equal to that of half the kingdom of Saxony some space is wanted.
I went into the Ship tavern, gave my horse to the hostler, and was shown into a very neat little room with a balcony projecting over the Thames, under which the fish were swimming which I, merciless human beast of prey, was about to devour. The river was enlivened by a hundred barks; music and song resounded cheerfully from the steam-boats passing by; and behind the gay scene, the sun, blood-red, and enveloped in a light veil of mist, declined towards the horizon. As I sat at the window,I gave audience to my thoughts, till the entrance of various sorts of fish as variously prepared, called me to more material pleasures. Iced champagne, and Lord Chesterfield’s Letters, which I had put into my pocket, gave zest to my repast; and after a short siesta, during which night had come on, I remounted my horse and rode the German mile and a half to my home through an unbroken avenue of brilliant gas lamps, and over well-watered roads. It was just striking midnight when I reached the house, and a coffin hung with black passed me on the left like an apparition.
July 5th.
B—— gave me your letter at Almack’s, and I immediately hastened ‘home’ with it. How greatly have your descriptions rejoiced me! I was near weeping over the venerable trees that called to me, through you,—“Oh, our master and lord, hearest thou not the rustling of our leafy tops, the home of so many birds?” Ah, yes, I hear it in spirit, and shall have no true enjoyment till I am once more therewith my truest friend, and the plants that are to me as loving children. I thank you cordially for the leaf of cinq foil; and as the horse of the accompanying Vienna postillion, the bearer of a thousand blessings, has lost his tail on the road, I have replaced it by this leaf, which gives him a genuine Holy Alliance look.
Here my old B—— interrupted me with the question whether he might stay out for the night, promising to be back by eight in the morning. I gave him leave, and asked, laughing, what adventure he had in hand? “Ach!” said he, “I only want for once to see how they hang people here, and at six o’clock in the morning five men are to be hanged at once.”
What a discord rang through my whole being, just filled with joyous tumult! What a contrast between the thousands, wearied with the dance, and sated with multiplied amusements, returning home at that hour to their luxurious couches, and those wretched beings who are condemned to pass through anguish and pain into eternity! I exclaimed again with Napoleon, “Oh, monde, monde!” and for a long time, after a day wasted in frivolity, could not go to sleep; I was pursued by the thought that at that very moment perhaps these unhappy ones were called to take so fearful a leave of the world and its joys; not excited and elevated by the feeling of being martyrs to some good or great cause, but the victims of vulgar, debasing crime. Men pity those who suffer innocently: how much more pitiable do the guilty appear to me!
My imagination when once excited always outstrips wisdom and expediency; and thus did all vain pleasures, all those refinements of luxury which mock at misery and privation, now appear to me in the light of real sins: indeed I very often feel in the same temper with regard to them. A luxurious dinner has often been spoiled to me when I have looked at the poor servants, who are present indeed, but only as assistant slaves; or thought of the needy, who at the close of a long day’s ceaseless toil can hardly obtain their scanty miserable meal; while we, like the epicure in the English caricature, envy the beggarhis hunger. Yet spite of all these good and just feelings, (I judge of others by myself,) we should be greatly incensed if our servant played the Tantalus and removed the dishes from our tempting table, or if the poor man invited himself to share our feast without the wedding garment. Heaven has ordained that some shouldenjoy, while others want; and so it must remain inthisworld. Every shout of joy is echoed, in some other place, by a cry of grief and despair; and while one man here breaks the cord of existence in phrensy, another is lost elsewhere in an ecstasy of delight.
Let no one therefore fret himself vainly concerning it, if he neither deserve nor understands that it should fare better or worse with him than with others. Fate delights in this bitter irony—therefore pluck, O man! the flowers with child-like joy so long as they bloom; share their fragrance and beauty when you can with others, and manfully present a breast of steel to your own misfortunes.
July 7th.
I return to my daily chronicle.
After dining with the epicurean Sir L——, I passed the evening very agreeably in a small party at the Duchess of Kent’s. The Court circles here, if they may be called so, have no resemblance whatever to those of the Continent, which once led the absent Count R—— into such a strange scrape. The King of B—— asked him how he enjoyed the ball that evening; “Oh,” replied he, “as soon as the Court is gone I think it will be very pleasant.”
At a very late hour I drove from thence to a ball at Princess L——’s, a lady whose entertainments are perfectly worthy of her Fashionableness ‘par excellence.’ A conversation I accidentally fell into with another diplomate procured me some interesting particulars. He told me about that difficult mission, the purpose of which was to induce the Empress of the French voluntarily to quit an army still devoted to Napoleon, and consisting of at least twelve thousand picked men. Contrary to all expectation, however, he found in Marie Louise scarcely a disposition to resist, and very little love for the Emperor (which indeed the sequel has sufficiently proved.) The little King of Rome alone, then only five years old, steadfastly refused to go, and could only be removed by force;—just as on a former occasion, led by the same heroic instinct, he had resisted the Regent’s pusillanimous flight from Paris. His account of the parts which many distinguished men played on this occasion I must omit: I can only say that it confirmed me in the persuasion that the French nation never sunk to so low a pitch of baseness as at the time of Napoleon’s abdication.
July 10th.
It is now more oppressively hot than I had imagined possible in this misty country. The turf in Hyde Park is of the colour of sand, and the trees dry and sear; the squares in the town, spite of all the watering, do not look much better. Nevertheless the grass-plots are as carefully mowed and rolled as if there were really grass upon them. No doubt, with equal care and labour, even more beautiful turf could be obtained in South Germany than here; but we shall never get to that,—we love our ease too well.
As the heat increases, London empties, and the season is nearly over. For the first time I found myself without an invitation to-day, and employed my leisure in sight-seeing. Among other things I visited the King’s Bench and Newgate prisons.
The former, which is principally appropriated to the reception of debtors,is a perfect isolated world in miniature;—like a not insignificant town, only surrounded by walls thirty feet high. Cookshops, circulating libraries, coffee-houses, dealers, and artizans of all kinds, dwellings of different degrees, even a market-place,—nothing is wanting. When I went in, a very noisy game at ball was going on in the latter. A man who has money lives as well and agreeably as possible within these walls,—bating liberty. Even very ‘good society,’ male and female, is sometimes to be found in this little commune of a thousand persons; but he who has nothing fares ill enough; to him, however, every spot on the globe is a prison. Lord Cochrane passed some time in the King’s Bench, for spreading false intelligence with a view to lower the Funds; and the rich, highly respected, and popular Sir Francis Burdett was also imprisoned here some time for a libel he wrote. The prisoner who conducted me about had been an inhabitant of the place twelve years, and declared in the best possible humour, that he had no hope of ever coming out again. An old French-woman of very good air and manners said the same; and declared that she did not intend ever to acquaint her relations with her situation, for that she lived very contentedly here, and did not know how she might find matters in France. She seemed perfectly persuaded ‘que le mieux est l’ennemi du bien.’
The aspect of Newgate, the prison for criminals, is more apalling. But even here the treatment is very mild, and a most exemplary cleanliness reigns throughout. The Government allows each criminal a pint of thick gruel in a morning, and half a pound of meat or a mess of broth alternately for dinner, with a pound of good bread daily. Besides this, they are permitted to buy other articles of food, and half a bottle of wine a day. They employ themselves as they please; there are separate courts belonging to a certain number of rooms or cells: for those who like to work there are work rooms; but many smoke and play from morning till night. At nine o’clock they must all attend divine service. Seven or eight generally inhabit one room. They are allowed a mattress and two blankets for sleeping, and coals for cooking, and, in winter, for warming the cells. Those condemned to death are put in separate less convenient cells, where two or three sleep together. By day, even these have a court-yard for recreation, and a separate eating room. I saw six boys, the eldest of whom was not more than fourteen, all under sentence of death, smoking and playing very merrily. The sentence was not yet confirmed, however, and they were still with the other prisoners; it was thought it would be commuted for transportation to Botany Bay. Four of a maturer age, in the same predicament,—only that the enormity of their crimes left them no hope of pardon,—took their fate still more gaily. Three of them were noisily playing whist with Dummy,[59]amid jokes and laughter; but the fourth sat in a window-seat busily engaged in studying a French grammar. ‘C’était bien un philosophe sans le savoir!’
July 12th.
Yesterday evening I went for the first time to Vauxhall, a public garden, in the style of Tivoli at Paris, but on a far grander and more brilliant scale. The illumination with thousands of lamps of the most dazzlingcolours is uncommonly splendid. Especially beautiful were large bouquets of flowers hung in the trees, formed of red, blue, yellow, and violet lamps, and the leaves and stalks of green; there were also chandeliers of a gay Turkish sort of pattern of various hues, and a temple for the music, surmounted with the royal arms and crest. Several triumphal arches were not of wood, but of cast-iron, of light transparent patterns, infinitely more elegant, and quite as rich as the former. Beyond this the gardens extended with all their variety and their exhibitions, the most remarkable of which was the battle of Waterloo. They open at seven: there was an opera, rope-dancing, and at ten o’clock (to conclude) this same battle. It is curious enough, and in many scenes the deception really remarkable. An open part of the gardens is the theatre, surrounded by venerable horse-chesnuts mingled with shrubs. Between four of the former, whose foliage is almost impervious, was a ‘tribune,’ with benches for about twelve hundred persons, reaching to the height of forty feet. Here we took our seats, not without a frightful squeeze, in which we had to give and take some hearty pushes. It was a warm and most lovely night: the moon shone extremely bright, and showed a huge red curtain, hung, at a distance of about fifty paces from us, between two gigantic trees, and painted with the arms of the United Kingdom. Behind the curtain rose the tops of trees as far as one could see. After a moment’s pause, the discharge of a cannon thundered through the seeming wood, and the fine band of the second regiment of Guards was heard in the distance. The curtain opened in the centre, was quickly drawn asunder; and we saw, as if by the light of day, the outwork of Houguemont on a gently rising ground, amid high trees. The French ‘Gardes’ in correct uniform now advanced out of the wood to martial music, with the bearded ‘Sapeurs’ at their head. They formed into line; and Napoleon on his gray horse, and dressed in his gray surtout, accompanied by several marshals, rode past them ‘en revue.’ A thousand voices shout ‘Vive l’Empereur!’—the Emperor touches his hat, sets off at a gallop, and the troops bivouac in dense groups. A distant firing is then heard; the scene becomes more tumultuous, and the French march out. Shortly after, Wellington appears with his staff,—all very good copies of the individuals,—harangues his troops, and rides slowly off. The great original was among the spectators, and laughed heartily at his representative. The fight is begun by the ‘tirailleurs;’ whole columns then advance upon each other, and charge with the bayonet; the French cuirassiers charge the Scotch Grays; and as there are a thousand men and two hundred horses in action, and no spare of gunpowder, it is, for a moment, very like a real battle. The storming of Houguemont, which is set on fire by several shells, was particularly well done: the combatants were for a time hidden by the thick smoke of real fire, or only rendered partially visible by the flashes of musquetry, while the foreground was strewed with dead and dying. As the smoke cleared off, Houguemont was seen in flames,—the English as conquerors, the French as captives: in the distance was Napoleon on horseback, and behind him his carriage-and-four hurrying across the scene. The victorious Wellington was greeted with loud cheers mingled with the thunder of the distant cannon. The ludicrous side of the exhibition was the making Napoleon race across the stage several times, pursued and fugitive, to tickle English vanity, and afford a triumph to the ‘plebs’ in good and bad coats. But such is the lotof the great! The conqueror before whom the world trembled,—for whom the blood of millions was freely shed,—for whose glance or nod kings waited and watched,—is now a child’s pastime, a tale of his times, vanished like a dream,—the Jupiter gone, and as it seems, Scapan only remaining.
Although past midnight it was still early enough to go from the strange scene of illumination and moonlight to a splendid ball at Lady L——’s, where I found a blaze of diamonds, handsome women, dainty refreshments, a luxurious supper, and gigantic ennui; I therefore went to bed as early as five o’clock.
July 13th.
I had often heard of a certain Mr. Deville, a disciple of Gall; a passionate craniologist, who voluntarily, and only with a view to the advancement of his science, gives audience every day at certain hours. He carefully examines the skulls of his visitors, and very courteously communicates the result of his observations.
Full of curiosity, I went to him this morning, and found a gallery containing a remarkable collection of skulls and casts, filled with ladies and gentlemen; some of whom brought their children to be examined with a view to their education. A pale, unaffected, serious man was occupied in satisfying their curiosity with evident good-will and pleasure. I waited till all the rest were gone, and then asked Mr. Deville to do me the favour to grant me an especial share of attention; for that, though it was unhappily too late for education with me, I earnestly wished to receive from him such an account of myself as I might place before me as a sort of mirror. He looked at me attentively, perhaps that he might first detect, by the Lavaterian method, whether I was ‘de bonne foi,’ or was only speaking ironically. He then politely asked me to be seated. He felt my head for a full quarter of an hour; after which he sketched the following portrait of me, bit by bit. You, who know me so well, will doubtless be as much surprised at it as I was. I confess that it plunged me into no little astonishment, impossible as I knew it to be that he could ever have known anything about me. As I wrote down all he said immediately, and the thing interested me, as you may believe, not a little, I do not think I can have mistaken in any material point.[60]
“Your friendship,” he began, “is very difficult to win, and can be gained only by those who devote themselves to you with the greatest fidelity. In this case, however, you will requite their attachment with unshaken constancy.”
“You are irritable in every sense of the word, and capable of the greatest extremes; but neither the passion of love, of hatred, nor any other, has very enduring consequences with you.”
“You love the arts, and if you had applied, or would apply to them, you would make great proficiency with little difficulty. I find the power of composition strongly marked upon your skull. You are no imitator, butlike to create: indeed you must often be driven by irresistible impulse to produce what is new.”
“You have also a strong sense of harmony, order, and symmetry. Servants or workmen must have some trouble in satisfying you, for nothing can be complete and accurate enough for you.”
“You have,—strangely enough,—the love of domestic life and the love of rambling about the world (which are opposed,) of equal strength. No doubt, therefore, you take as many things about with you as you can find means to convey; and try in every place to surround yourself with accustomed objects and images as quickly as possible.” (This, so strikingly true, and so much in detail, astonished me particularly.)
“There is a similar contradiction in you between an acute understanding (forgive me, I must repeat what he said,) and a considerable propensity to enthusiasm and visionary musing. You must be profoundly religious, and yet, probably, you have no very strong attachment to any particular form of religion, but rather (his very words) revere a First Cause under a moral point of view.”
“You are very vain,—not in the way of those who think themselves anything great, but of those who wish to be so. Hence, you are not perfectly at ease in the society of your superiors, in any sense of the word,—nay, even of your equals. You are perfectly at ease only where, at least on one point, either from your station, or from some other cause, you have an acknowledged preponderance. Contradiction, concealed satire, apparent coldness, (especially when ambiguous and not decidedly and openly hostile,) paralyze your faculties; and you are, as I said, perfectly unrestrained and ‘cheerful’ only in situations where your vanity is not ‘hurt;’ and where the people around you are, at the same time, attached to you, to which your good-nature—one of your strongest characteristics—makes you peculiarly susceptible.”
“This latter quality, united to a strong judgment, makes you a great venerator of truth and justice. The contrary incenses you; and you would always be disposed to take the part of the oppressed, without any individual interest in the matter. You are ready to confess your own injustice, and to make any reparation you can. Unpleasant truths concerning yourself may vex you, but if said without hostile intention, will incline you to much higher esteem for the sayer. For the same reason, you will not rate distinctions of birth too highly, though your vanity may not be wholly insensible to them.”
“You are easily carried away, and yet levity is not one of your characteristics: on the contrary, you have ‘cautiousness’[61]in a high degree. It is indeed the wormwood in your life; for you reflect far too much upon everything; you conjure up the strangest fancies, and fall into distress and trouble, mistrust of yourself and suspicion of others, or into perfect apathy, at mere trifles. You occupy yourself almostalways with the future, little with the past, and less with the present.”
“You continuallyaspire(streben); are covetous of distinction, and very sensitive to neglect; have a great deal of ambition, and of various kinds; these you rapidly interchange, and want to reach your object quickly, for your imagination is stronger than your patience; and therefore you must find peculiarly favourable circumstances in order to succeed.”
“You have, however, qualities which make you capable of no common things, even the organ of perseverance and constancy is strongly expressed on your skull, but obstructed by so many conflicting organs, that you stand in need of great excitement to give room for it to act: then the nobler powers are called forward, and the meaner ones recede.”
“You value wealth very highly, as all do who wish to accomplish great objects,—but only as means, not as end. Money in itself is indifferent to you, and it is possible that you are not always a very good manager of it.”
“You want to have all your wishes gratified in a moment, as with an enchanter’s wand: often however, the wish expires before the fulfilment is possible. The pleasures of sense, and delight in the beautiful, have a powerful influence over you; and as you certainly incline to the imperious, the ambitious, and the vain, you have here a cluster of qualities, against which you have need to be upon your guard not to fall into great faults; for all propensities in themselves are good; it is only their abuse that renders them a source of evil. Even the organs so erroneously designated by the father of our science the organs of murder and theft, (now more correctly termed organs of destructiveness and acquisitiveness) are only marks of energy and of desire to possess, which, when united with good-nature, conscientiousness and foresight, form a finely constituted head; though without these intellectual qualities they may easily lead to crime.”
He also said, that in judging of a skull it was necessary to regard not the separate organs, but the aggregate of the whole; for that they respectively modified each other in various ways; nay, sometimes entirely neutralized each other; that therefore the proportions of the whole afforded the true key to the character of the man.
As a universal rule, he laid down, that men whose skulls, if divided by a supposed perpendicular line drawn through the middle of the ear, presented a larger mass before than behind, were the higher portion of the species; for that the fore part contains the intellectual, the hind part the animal propensities.
All the skulls of criminals who had been executed, for instance, which he had in his collection, confirmed his theory; and in one distinguished for the atrocious character of his offence, the occiput was two-thirds of the whole head. The busts of Nero and Caracalla exhibit the same proportions.—Where the contrary extreme prevails, the individual in question is deficient in energy: and here, as in every thing, a balance is the true desideratum.
Mr. Deville affirmed that it was possible, not only to enlarge organs already prominent by the exercise of the qualities they denote, but by that very process to diminish others; and assured me that no age was excepted from this rule. He showed me the cast of a skull of a gentleman who, when near sixty, devoted himself intensely to the study of astronomy;and in a few years the appropriate ‘bosse’ became so prominent as to project considerably beyond all others.[62]
July 14.
I have paid several visits to Mr. Nash, to whom I am indebted for much valuable instruction inmyart. He is said to have ‘erected’ an enormous fortune. He has a beautiful country-house, and no artist is more handsomely lodged in town. I was particularly pleased with his library. It consists of a long and wide gallery, with twelve deep niches on each side, and two large doorways at the ends, leading into two other spacious rooms. In each niche is a semicircular window in the roof, and on the wall a fresco painting, copied from the ‘Logge di Rafaelle;’ and below these, casts of the best antique statues, on pedestals. The remaining space in the niches is occupied by books, which, however, rise no higher than the pedestal of the statues. Arabesques, also copied from those of the Vatican, admirably executed in fresco, adorn the broad pilasters between the niches.
All the space on the walls or pilasters not covered with paintings is of a pale red stucco, with small gold mouldings. The execution seems thoroughly finished and excellent.
I dined at the Portuguese Ambassador’s. Our dinner was very near ending like Prince Schwartzenberg’s at Paris. One of Rundell and Bridge’s beautiful brilliant silver girandoles came too near the curtain, which immediately blazed up. The flames were extinguished by the Spanish Ambassador; a fact which may afford matter for witticisms to the newspapers, in the present political conjuncture.
I drove half a post further in the streets, late at night, to see the tower of St. Giles’s church, whose new bright-red illuminated clock-face shines like a magnificent star in the dark.
I found your letter at home, with all sorts of affectionate reproaches for my neglect of our own interests for indifferent things. Even were this sometimes the case, you must not think that my heart is the less filled with you. The rose, too, sometimes yields a stronger, sometimes a weaker perfume; nay, sometimes there is not a flower on the bush; in their season they bud and blossom again—but the nature of the plant is always the same.
Herder’s prayer is beautiful—but it is not applicable to this earth; for though it is true that God’s sun shines on the evil and on the good, it is equally true that His thunderbolt strikes the good and the evil. Each must protect himself from calamity, with all the wisdom and the courage he is endowed with.
Men are wearisome to you, you say. Oh, Heaven! how wearisome are they to me! When one has lived so long in the interchange of all feelings and all thoughts, the intercourse with the ‘banal’ unsympathizing world is more than empty and tasteless.
Your hypothesis, that two kindred souls will, in another world, melt into one existence, is very pretty—but I should not like to be united to you in that manner. One beingmust, indeed, love itself; but the mutual love of two is voluntary, and that alone has value. Let us therefore hope to meet again, but to be one, as we are now,—one only in mutual love and truth.
One of the many currents of this great stream carried me into the Annual Exhibition of Pictures. In historical pictures there was little to delight the lover of art. Some portraits by Sir Thomas Lawrence showed, as all his do, his great genius, and at the same time his carelessness. He finishes only particular parts, and daubs over the remainder in such a manner that it must be looked at from a distance, like scene-painting. The great masters of the art painted not so, when they devoted their talents to portrait painting.
In landscapes, on the other hand, there was much that was attractive.
First, The Dead Elephant.—The scene is a wild mountain-district in the interior of India. Strange gigantic trees and luxuriant tangled thickets surround a dark lake. A dead elephant lies stretched on its shore, and a crocodile, opening its wide jaws and displaying its frightful teeth, is seen climbing up the huge body, driving away a monstrous bird of prey, and menacing the other crocodiles which are eagerly swimming across the lake to their repast. Vultures are poised on the branches of the trees, and the head of a tiger glares from the jungle. On the other side are seen three still more formidable predatory animals,—English hunters, whose guns are pointed at the great crocodile, and will soon excite more terrific confusion among this terrific group.
Another view is on the sea-shore of Africa. You see ships in the far distance. In the foreground a palm-grove slopes down to the clear stream, where a boat is lying at anchor, in which a negro is sleeping—but in what a fearful situation! A gigantic boa-constrictor has issued from the wood, and, while its tail rests in the thicket, has twined itself in a loose ring around the sleeper, it now rears its head aloft hissing with rage at his companions, who are hastening with their axes to his assistance. One of them has just fortunately succeeded in scotching it, and has thus saved the negro, who wakes, and stares in wild terror on the serpent. It is said that as soon as the muscles of the back of the boa are divided in any part it loses all its power. The picture is taken from an incident which really occurred in the year 1792.
We are still in a distant part of the globe, but in more remote ages. A wondrously beautiful moonlight gleams and glitters on the Bay of Alexandria. Majestic monuments and temples of Egyptian art lie in the strongly contrasted light and shadow; and from the steps of a hall of noble architecture, Cleopatra, surrounded by all the luxury and pomp of the East, is descending to the golden bark which is to bear her to Antony. The most beautiful boys and girls strew flowers under her feet, and a chorus of old men with snowy beards and clad in purple, are seated on the sea-shore, singing a farewell song to their golden harps.
Have you not enough of this yet, dear Julia? Well then, look at the Travelled Monkey, who returns to his brethren in the woods, in the dress of a modern ‘exclusive.’ They throng around him in amazement; one pulls at his watch chain, another at his well starched cravat. At length,one whose jealousy is excited by his finery gives him a box on the ear: this is a signal for an universal pillage. In a few minutes he will be reduced to appear once more ‘in naturalibus.’
Here I close my exhibition. Dear Julia, confess that if you were the editor of the ‘Morgen Blatt,’ you could not have a more indefatigable correspondent. Whether I be well or ill, merry or sad, I always fulfil my duty. Just now I am by no means at my best: I am ill, and I have lost a great deal of money at whist. It is really extraordinary how soon one comes to regard a pound as a ‘thaler.’ Though I know the difference full well, and often find it not very agreeable, yet the physical effect of the ‘sovereign’ here, is constantly the same upon me as that of the ‘thaler’ at home, for which I often laugh at myself. I wish fate would make a similar mistake, and convert our ‘thalers’ into pounds. I, for one, should certainly not bury mine. Yet we should put our gains to good interest; for when one tries to make a beautified living creation out of dead money, as we have done, and at the same time to increase the comfort of those around one,—as I did by employing them, and you by the more direct means of bounty,—surely one has gained usurious interest.
Prudence, however, is not our ‘forte,’ and if you have shown rather more than I, it is only because you are a woman, and have therefore the habit of being on the defensive. Prudence is far more a weapon of defence than of attack.
You have now a good opportunity for the exercise of it in the S—— society, and I already see you in thought taming the refractory, and speaking the words of peace with dignified serenity. Here is your portrait on the margin, ‘à la Sir Thomas Lawrence.’ You will doubtless recognize that strong bent for art which the Gallite discovered on my cranium. The surrounding caricatures you must ascribe to my somewhat sulky humour.
As a mind in this flat depressed tone is little fertile in thoughts, permit me to supply the place of them by some passages out of a singular book I have met with. You will think that it must have flowed not only from my pen but from my most inmost soul.
“It is incalculable,” says the author, “what an influence the objects which surround our childhood exercise over the whole formation of our character in after life. In the dark forests of the land of my birth, in my continual solitary wanderings where nature wears so romantic an aspect, arose my early love for my own meditations, and, when I was afterwards thrown among numbers of my own age at school, rendered it impossible to my disposition of mind, to form any intimate companionships, except those which I first began to discoverin myself.
“In the day my great pleasure was lonely wandering in the country:—in the evening, the reading of romantic fictions, which I connected in my mind with the scenes I was so familiar with; and whether I sat in winter in the chimney corner poring over my book, or in summer lay stretched in luxurious indolence under a tree, my hours were equally filled with all those misty and voluptuous dreams which were perhaps the essence of poetry, but whichI was not gifted with the genius to embody. Such a temper is not made for intercourse with men. One while I pursued an object with restless activity,—another I lived in perfectly supine meditation. Nothing came up to my wishes or my imaginings, and my whole being was at last profoundly imbued with that bitter, melancholy philosophy, whichtaught me, like Faust, that knowledge is but useless stuff, that hope is but a cheat; and laid a curse upon me, like that which hangs on him who, amid all the joys of youth and the allurements of pleasure, feels the presence of a spirit of darkness ever around him.
“The experience of longer and bitterer years makes me doubt whether this earth can ever bring forth a living form which can realize the visions of him who has dwelt too long absorbed in the creations of his own fancy.”
In another place, he says of a man who was much praised:
“He was one of the macadamized Perfections of society. His greatest fault was his complete levelness and equality; you longed for a hill to climb;—for a stone, even if it lay in your way. Love can attach itself only to something prominent, were it even a thing that others might hate. One can hardly feel what is extreme for mediocrity.”
‘C’est vraiment une consolation!’
Further: “Our senses may be enthralled by beauty; but absence effaces the impression, and reason may vanquish it.”
“Our vanity may make us passionately adore rank and distinction, but the empire of vanity is founded on sand.”
“Who can love Genius, and not perceive that the feelings it excites are a part of our own being and of our immortality?”
July 18th.
Would you believe, dearest Julia, that although annoyed in various ways, and almost ill, I have found these days of solitude, in which I have been occupied only with you, my books, and my thoughts, much more satisfactorily,—how shall I express it?—much more fully employed, than that comfortless existence which is called society and the world. Play forms an ingredient, for that is a mere killing of time without any result, but has at least the advantage, that we are not conscious of the time we are wasting during its lapse, as we are in most so-called amusements. How few men can rightly enter into such a state of mind! and how fortunate may I esteem myself that you can! You are only too indulgent towards me, and that makes me place less confidence in your judgments.
Now for a secret:—When I send you any extracts from books, you are never to swear whose they are; for, thanks to my boasted organ of composition (you see I am still busied with Mr. Deville,) exact transcribing is almost an impossibility with me. A borrowed material always becomes something different, if not something better, under my hands. But as I am so excitable and mobile, I must often appear inconsistent, and my letters must contain many contradictions. Nevertheless, I hope a genuinely humane spirit always appears in them, and, here and there, a knightly one; for every man must pay his tribute to the circumstances with which birth and existence have surrounded him.
Ah, if we did but live together in the old knightly days! Many a time has the enchanting picture of the castle of our fathers,—such as they inhabited it, in the wild Spessart, frowning from rocks surrounded by old oaks and firs,—stood like a dim recollection before my fancy. Along the hollow way in the valley, I see the lord of the castle with his horsemen riding to meet the morning sun, (for as a true knight he is an early riser.) You, good Julia, lean forward from the balcony, and wave your handkerchieftill not a steel breastplate glitters in the sunbeam, and nothing living is in sight, save a timid roe that darts out of the thicket, or a high-antlered stag that looks proudly down from some crested crag on the country beneath.
Another time we are seated, after some successful feud, at our goblets. You pour out the wine, which I quaff like a brave and true knight, while the good chaplain reads the wonders of a legend. Now the warder’s horn is heard on the turret, and a banner is seen winding up to the castle gate. It is your former lover returned from the Holy Land—‘Gare à toi.’[63]
July 19th.
A cheerful ray of sun enticed me forth, but I soon exchanged the clear air of heaven for subterranean gloom. I went into the famous Tunnel, the wonderful passage under the Thames. You have read in the papers that the water broke in some weeks ago, and filled the part that was completed, five hundred and forty feet in length. Any event, lucky or unlucky, is sure to give birth to a caricature in a few days. There is one representing the Tunnel catastrophe, in which a fat man on all-fours, and looking like a large toad, is trying to save himself, and screaming ‘Fire!’ with a mouth extended from ear to ear. With the aid of the diving-bell the hole has been so stopped, that it is asserted there is no fear of a recurrence of the accident. The water has been pumped out by a steam-engine of great power, so that one can descend with perfect safety. It is a gigantic work, practicable nowhere but here, where people don’t know what to do with their money.
From hence I went to Astley’s theatre, the Franconi’s of London, and superior to its rival. A horse called Pegasus, with wings attached to his shoulders, performs wonderful feats; and the drunken Russian courier, who rides six or eight horses at once, cannot be surpassed for dexterity and daring. The dramatic part of the exhibition consisted of a most ludicrous parody of the Freischütz. Instead of the casting of the bullets, we had Pierrot and Pantaloon making a cake, to which Weber’s music formed a strangely ludicrous accompaniment. The spirits which appear are all kitchen spirits, and Satan himself a ‘chef de cuisine.’ As the closing horror, the ghost of a pair of bellows blows out all the lights, except one great taper, which continually takes fire again. A giant fist seizes poor Pierrot; and a cook almost as tall as the theatre, in red and black devilish costume, covers both with an ‘extinguisher’ as big as a house.